Chương 5
Daniel rubbed his thumb over his wedding ring.
“She used to tell me the worst thing a person could do was make you look stupid for trusting them.”
Rachel looked at the closed bedroom door.
“And then she did that to you.”
Daniel nodded.
The next morning Ethan asked for cereal and ate only the marshmallows.
Rachel let him.
Daniel made coffee and forgot to put the mug under the machine.
Coffee ran into the drip tray until Rachel smelled it.
“You okay?” she asked.
Daniel stared at the machine.
“No.”
“Good.”
He looked at her.
“I’d be worried if you said yes.”
Ethan came into the kitchen carrying one sock.
“Dad, where’s my other one?”
Daniel looked at him.
Rachel watched the tiny hesitation before he answered.
“Probably wherever your tie went.”
“My tie’s in your pocket.”
Daniel reached into the suit jacket he had hung over a chair.
The tie was still there.
Ethan almost smiled.
Rachel wanted to grab that smile and keep it somewhere safe.
Daniel found the sock under the couch.
At breakfast Ethan asked, “Do I have to see Grandma today?”
“No,” Rachel said.
Daniel said the same thing half a second later.
Ethan nodded.
“Ever?”
Rachel glanced at Daniel.
“We don’t know yet.”
Ethan stirred the remaining cereal.
“What if she says sorry?”
Rachel sat beside him.
“That would be something we would listen to.”
“Then I see her?”
“Not automatically.”
“Why?”
“Because saying sorry matters, but it doesn’t erase what happened.”
Ethan considered that.
“Like when I broke Noah’s robot?”
“Yes.”
“I said sorry.”
“You also gave him your birthday money to replace it.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“I remember.”
Ethan pushed the bowl away.
“Grandma has money.”
Daniel made a sound that was almost a cough.
Rachel covered her mouth.
Ethan looked between them.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Daniel said.
Margaret called at nine fourteen.
Daniel stared at her name on his phone until it stopped ringing.
She called again at nine sixteen.
Then sent a message.
We need to discuss what occurred last night before Claire’s family turns this into something it was not.
Rachel read it over Daniel’s shoulder.
“She managed to make herself the victim in twenty-three words.”
“Twenty-four.”
Rachel counted.
“You’re right.”
Daniel set the phone facedown.
At ten thirty Claire called Rachel.
Not Daniel.
Rachel took the call in the laundry room because Ethan was watching cartoons.
Claire sounded exhausted.
“Ryan’s parents left early.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t because of you. His mother gets migraines.”
Rachel did not believe her.
Claire seemed to hear that.
“Okay, maybe partly because of everything.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“Me too.”
They listened to each other breathe.
Then Claire said, “I’m mad.”
Rachel closed the dryer.
“At Margaret?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“And a little at Daniel.”
Rachel leaned against the machine.
“That makes sense.”
“I know he didn’t start it.”
“But?”
“But he brought evidence of some seven-year family disaster to my wedding.”
“He got it that morning.”
“I know. Ryan told me.”
“Daniel told Ryan?”
“No. Ryan asked him last night.”
Rachel filed that away.
Claire said, “I’m not saying he should have let her keep lying to Ethan.”
“I know.”
“I just wish none of you had been there.”
Rachel almost laughed.
Claire did.
It came out as a short, miserable sound.
“That was horrible.”
“It was honest.”
“I spent fourteen months planning one day.”
“I know.”
“And now every person who calls me wants to ask if Margaret committed some kind of crime.”
“Did she?”
Claire went quiet.
Rachel regretted the question.
“I don’t know,” Claire said. “Did she?”
“I don’t know either.”
That became the next problem.
By Monday afternoon, four relatives had contacted Daniel asking what the laboratory report proved.
Two asked whether Ethan was really his son.
One, an aunt Rachel had met perhaps five times, sent a message saying she had always believed Ethan “favored the Miller side.”
Rachel nearly threw Daniel’s phone across the room.
Instead she handed it back.
“That one is somehow worse.”
Daniel deleted the message.
At school, Ethan told his best friend Noah that his grandmother had lied about his dad.
By lunchtime, another child asked whether Ethan was adopted.
By dismissal, a parent Rachel barely knew sent her a sympathetic text.
Rachel sat in her car outside the elementary school and stared at the phone.
Daniel, who had left work early, was in the passenger seat.
“I hate everybody,” she said.
“Specific people or humanity?”
“Today? Broadly.”
He nodded.
“Reasonable.”
Ethan came out carrying his backpack by one strap.
He saw their car and walked faster.
Not running.
Rachel noticed that too.
He climbed into the back seat.
“Can Dad come to pickup tomorrow?”
Daniel turned.
“Sure.”
Ethan nodded.
“Okay.”
Rachel waited.
“Why?”
“No reason.”
Daniel looked at him through the mirror.
Ethan picked at the zipper on his backpack.
“Noah says if you’re really my dad, you should come more.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Daniel said, “Noah is seven.”
“He’s eight.”
“That changes everything.”
Ethan frowned.
Daniel continued.
“I can come more.”
“Every day?”
“I have work every day.”
Ethan looked disappointed.
“I can come Wednesday and Friday.”
“Mom comes the other days?”
“Yes.”
Ethan nodded.
“Okay.”
When they got home, Daniel emailed his assistant and blocked Wednesday and Friday afternoons for the next month.
Rachel watched him.
“You know you don’t have to prove it to Noah.”
“I know.”
“Or Ethan.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He did not answer.
That night Margaret sent Rachel a message.
You of all people should understand that difficult decisions are sometimes made to protect a child.
Rachel read it twice.
Then she walked into the bathroom, shut the door, and called Margaret.
The woman answered on the first ring.
“Rachel.”
“Do not message me about protecting my child.”
Margaret inhaled.
“I was not referring to last night.”
“I don’t care what you were referring to.”
“There are circumstances you do not understand.”
May you like
“Then explain them.”
“I would prefer to speak with Daniel.”
