Chương 3
Whether she let him nap in the bassinet downstairs.
None of those changes had been important enough to fight about individually.
That had been the trick.
“Tell me what happened,” Ethan said.
Claire opened her eyes.
“You already heard enough.”
“I heard five seconds.”
“You heard her call me a liar.”
“I want to know what happened before I walked in.”
She turned.
“Why?”
His face changed.
“What do you mean, why?”
“Why do you need all of it?”
“Because I wasn’t here.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He looked at her for a long time.
Claire could hear someone in the other room quietly collecting glasses. The gathering had ended without anyone announcing it.
One by one, the muffled voices disappeared toward the front of the house.
Nobody came to say goodbye.
Claire did not blame them.
People hated choosing the correct social behavior after violence.
Was it rude to leave?
Ruder to stay?
Should someone hug the bruised woman?
Should they pretend not to have heard?
Ordinary manners became useless exactly when people needed them most.
“I need to understand,” Ethan said.
Claire’s laugh came out flat.
“There.”
“What?”
“That word.”
“What word?”
“Understand.”
“I don’t—”
“You always need to understand her before you believe me.”
His mouth closed.
“That’s not fair.”
Claire looked at him.
The sentence had come too quickly.
Ethan knew it as soon as he said it.
He looked down.
“No,” he said. “That wasn’t fair.”
Claire’s anger lost its shape for a second.
She had prepared herself for resistance so often that an apology sometimes felt like missing a stair in the dark.
She looked away.
“I was feeding Noah,” she said.
Ethan did not interrupt.
“Your mother came in. She said everyone wanted to see him.”
“He’d been out there for over an hour.”
“I told her that.”
Claire’s thumb moved across Noah’s back.
“She said I was being possessive.”
Ethan’s eyes lowered.
That was not surprising enough.
Claire noticed.
“She’s said that before, hasn’t she?”
He rubbed his jaw.
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly?”
“She said you were having a hard time letting other people help.”
Claire stared at him.
“When?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I thought she was venting.”
“About me.”
“Yes.”
“To you.”
“Yes.”
“And you thought that was normal.”
“No.”
“You just didn’t think it was worth mentioning.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“Keep going.”
Claire wanted to refuse.
Instead she did.
“She told me you were worried.”
Ethan’s head lifted.
“I’m not.”
“I know that now.”
“Claire, I never told her—”
“I know.”
The words came sharper than she intended.
Noah stirred.
She lowered her voice.
“That was the point. She said you’d told her I was barely sleeping, that I cried one night because Noah wouldn’t stop crying, that you were worried I was becoming too attached to him.”
Ethan looked genuinely confused.
“I told her you were tired.”
“Yes.”
“I told her we were both tired.”
“She improved the story.”
Ethan looked toward the counter.
Claire continued.
“I told her to leave me alone. She said she’d take him out so I could calm down. I said no. She reached for him.”
Ethan’s breathing changed.
Not much.
Claire noticed anyway.
“I moved away. She grabbed my wrist. Hard.”
She raised the red mark.
“The bracelet got between her hand and me. I think the clasp broke when I pulled back. She tried again.”
“What do you mean, tried again?”
“She grabbed at my shoulder.”
Claire touched the bruised side of her face without meaning to.
“The bracelet was still hanging from her hand. When I turned, it hit me here. Or her hand hit me. I don’t know. It was fast.”
Ethan stared at the bruise.
“Noah?”
“I had him.”
“Did she touch him?”
“No.”
“Did you drop—”
“No.”
He flinched.
Claire’s mouth hardened.
“No, Ethan. I didn’t drop our son.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“How did you mean it?”
“I meant was he hurt.”
“Then ask if he was hurt.”
He nodded once.
“Is he hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did he hit anything?”
“No.”
“Did his head—”
“No.”
“All right.”
“He was screaming. I was screaming at her to back up. She told me I was hysterical.”
Ethan let out a breath through his nose.
“Then what?”
“She stopped when she heard somebody in the hall.”
The doorway again.
That warm rectangle of light.
Claire had never thought a doorway could be a kind of evidence.
“She fixed her hair,” Claire said. “That’s what I remember most.”
Ethan’s expression shifted.
“What?”
“She fixed her hair.”
Claire gave a small shrug.
“I don’t know why that’s the thing that stuck. Noah was screaming. My eye hurt. My wrist hurt. Half her bracelet was on the floor. And she just…”
Claire lifted her fingers to the loose strand beside her own cheek.
“She tucked her hair behind her ear. Like she’d spilled something.”
Ethan looked sick.
“She told me to pull myself together before I scared the family.”
A pulse moved in Ethan’s throat.
“Then she left the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“Fed Noah.”
“You kept feeding him?”
“He was hungry.”
The question seemed to shame him.
Claire did not want that either.
She was suddenly exhausted by managing the emotional consequences of every honest sentence.
“I found the bracelet after,” she said. “One piece by the stool. One under the cabinet. There was blood on the clasp.”
“Yours?”
“I assume.”
“Why were you washing it?”
Claire looked at the sink.
There was the question she had been avoiding since his first sentence.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan waited.
“I really don’t.”
“Claire.”
“I looked at it and thought somebody would see it.”
“And?”
“And I thought…”
She shook her head.
It sounded ridiculous now.
“I thought if I cleaned it, maybe nobody would have to know.”
Ethan stared at her.
Claire felt shame spread hotter than the bruise around her eye.
“I know.”
“No.”
May you like
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
