Chương 5
“Can I see?”
“Why?”
Natalie flinched.
The question sounded harsher than Claire intended, but she did not take it back.
Natalie folded her hands. “Because yesterday he said he had no idea you were pregnant. Last night he said he thought the baby might not be his. This morning he said you refused to confirm there was a baby at all.”
Claire stared at her.
“He was still changing the story?”
“He is still changing it.”
Lily shifted beneath the blanket. Both women looked down.
Natalie’s expression softened for one second, then closed again.
“I’m not asking you to trust me,” she said. “I’m asking for enough information to stop trusting him accurately.”
Claire sent her four emails and three text threads. She omitted the voice memo.
It was not generosity. It was evidence.
Natalie read in silence.
At one point she covered her mouth.
At another, she looked out the window toward the highway, where snowplows had piled gray banks along the parking lot.
When she finished, she returned the phone.
“He told me you had a protective order against him.”
Claire blinked. “What?”
“He said you accused him of emotional abuse during the separation and that his attorney advised him not to contact you directly. He said any discussion about the pregnancy had to go through counsel.”
“There was no protective order.”
“I know that now.”
“You could have checked.”
“Yes.”
The directness of the answer left Claire with nowhere to place her anger.
Natalie rubbed her thumb over the mark where an engagement ring had been.
“I didn’t check because I wanted the answer he gave me,” she said. “I thought asking him was the honorable thing. Maybe I thought verifying it would make me suspicious and small. Mostly, I had already mailed invitations.”
Claire sat back.
The coffee machine hissed. One of the children near the waffle station announced that his brother had licked a spoon and returned it to the clean pile. Their father closed his eyes.
“Where is Evan?” Claire asked.
“At the resort.”
“With the guests?”
“Most people left. His parents are with him. My parents are packing my things.”
“Did you call the police?”
“For what?”
“The document.”
“I called my attorney. She told me not to accuse anyone of forgery until she reviewed the original file.”
“That sounds like my attorney.”
“They may have gone to the same school of disappointing people.”
This time Claire did smile, briefly.
Natalie noticed and looked offended by it, then almost smiled herself. The moment vanished before either woman had to acknowledge it.
“I need you to understand something,” Natalie said. “I am not joining you against him.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I am not your friend.”
“I didn’t ask that either.”
“I also won’t help him lie.”
Claire looked at her for a long moment. “That is enough.”
On Monday morning, Claire met with Simone Park in a downtown office above a dentist. Simone was forty-three, wore red-framed glasses, and had the unsettling habit of becoming quieter when other people became emotional.
She reviewed the PDF Natalie had forwarded, the original email headers, and the court record.
“The marriage is still legally intact,” Simone said. “There is no entered decree. The case was dismissed. We are filing a new petition today.”
“What about the document?”
“It appears false.”
“Appears?”
“You are paying me to say boring words that keep you from making expensive mistakes. Appears.”
Claire sat with Lily’s car seat beside her. The baby slept through the printer, two phone calls, and the dentist’s drill vibrating through the wall.
“Can Evan marry Natalie using the license they obtained?”
“Not lawfully while your marriage exists.”
“Does the county know?”
“Natalie’s attorney notified the clerk that the ceremony did not occur. The license will not be returned as completed.”
“Can he be charged?”
“That depends on what he represented, what he knew, what he submitted, and whether anyone decides to pursue it. We are not building your family case around the hope that a prosecutor becomes interested.”
“He forged a court order.”
“Possibly.”
“You keep saying possibly.”
“Because certainty is earned.”
Claire leaned back. “He knew.”
“I believe you.”
“That sounds different from knowing.”
“It is different.”
Claire disliked Simone for nearly ten seconds.
Then Simone removed her glasses.
“You need to prepare for the fact that his attorney will use the wedding confrontation against you,” she said. “They will say you exposed a newborn to a public spectacle. They may question your judgment, your emotional stability, and your willingness to support a future relationship between Lily and her father.”
“He had no relationship with her.”
“He can request one.”
Claire looked at the car seat.
Lily’s mouth moved in sleep.
“He doesn’t want one.”
“Do not assume that.”
“He denied knowing she existed.”
“People request parenting time for good reasons, bad reasons, mixed reasons, and reasons they do not understand themselves. He may feel guilt. He may want to repair his public image. He may love the idea of being a father. He may want leverage in settlement. Several things can be true.”
“I won’t let him use her.”
“You also cannot use his failures to erase his legal position without a court considering the evidence.”
Claire’s hands tightened in her lap. “So what was I supposed to do? Let him marry someone else and then invite him to a parenting class?”
“No.” Simone replaced her glasses. “You were supposed to have a husband who did not create this problem.”
The restraint in her voice made the sentence more comforting than sympathy would have been.
Simone filed the petition that afternoon. She also requested temporary child support, contribution toward medical expenses, and a formal paternity test because Evan’s lawyer had suddenly claimed paternity was “not established.”
When Claire read that phrase, she laughed.
Jo was washing bottles at Claire’s kitchen sink. “What?”
“He wants a DNA test.”
“Give him one.”
“I am.”
May you like
“Then why are you laughing?”
“Because he sent me a carrier.”
