Chương 4
“Verified how?” Mara asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did anyone call your obstetrician?”
“I did. No one answered at five in the morning. Then Daniel started asking about Owen.”
Mara’s face changed.
Owen Price had been Elise’s friend in college. They had dated for six months when they were twenty-one, then remained close enough to confuse anyone who thought adulthood required clean categories. Owen had helped Elise move twice, attended her wedding with his husband, and repaired the plumbing in her first studio for the cost of pizza.
“What did Owen have to do with it?” Mara asked.
“Vivian had photos of us having lunch.”
“You had lunch with him.”
“Three times.”
“Because he was designing the addition to the community center.”
“I know.”
“Daniel knew.”
“He knew about the project. He didn’t know we met alone.”
Mara stared.
Elise shifted in her chair.
“It wasn’t secret,” she said. “It just never came up.”
“That sentence is doing a lot.”
“I wasn’t having an affair.”
“I know you weren’t.”
“But I deleted one message from Owen.”
“Why?”
“Because he said Daniel was letting his mother run our marriage.”
Mara exhaled through her nose.
“That is unfortunately accurate.”
“I didn’t want Daniel to see it and turn the entire conversation into whether Owen respected him.”
“So you deleted it.”
“Yes.”
“And Vivian somehow knew.”
“She had a screenshot of that too.”
Mara was silent.
Noah’s swallowing slowed. Elise touched his cheek, and he resumed.
“Who had access to your phone?” Mara asked.
“Daniel knew the passcode.”
“His mother?”
“No.”
“Cloud account?”
“We share a family plan.”
“Passwords?”
“Daniel set most of them up.”
Mara looked toward Elise’s cracked phone.
“Don’t answer anything from them tonight.”
“I need my medical portal.”
“Then change the passwords.”
“I’m tired.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You don’t know which accounts.”
“Then you’ll tell me.”
Elise felt irritation rise, immediate and childish.
“Can everyone stop deciding things for me?”
Mara went still.
Noah released the breast and made a small, offended sound.
Elise closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“I do. You’re helping.”
“I can help and annoy you at the same time.”
“That’s your specialty.”
Mara stood and began washing a mug that was already clean.
“I’m not trying to take over,” she said. “I just don’t want them inside your phone while you’re sleeping.”
Elise looked at the back of her sister’s scrub top, at the small loose thread near the shoulder. Mara had worked thirteen hours the previous night, driven to St. Agnes to collect Elise, then driven to the Mercer house because Elise insisted she needed to face Daniel once before leaving him.
Now she was washing a mug to avoid showing that Elise had hurt her.
“Help me change them,” Elise said.
Mara nodded without turning around.
They changed the password to Elise’s email first, then the medical portal, cloud storage, banking account, and social media. The family phone plan would be harder. Daniel was the primary account holder.
Elise created a new email address while Noah slept against her shoulder.
When she finally opened the patient portal, she found the genuine prenatal reports. None mentioned incompatible blood types. None recommended paternity testing.
The false screenshot copied the layout well but not perfectly. The date format was wrong. The header used an older version of the St. Agnes logo. The medical record number belonged to no one Elise could identify.
Mara photographed both versions.
“Send them to me,” she said. “And to someone outside the family.”
“Who?”
“A lawyer.”
Elise almost laughed.
“I’m not suing anyone.”
“I didn’t say sue.”
“I just left my husband six hours ago.”
“You left a man who has attorneys on salary.”
“He isn’t going to hurt me.”
Mara looked at her.
“He already has.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“It should be.”
Elise rubbed her forehead.
The room seemed too warm. The radiator had stopped clanging but continued producing heat as if the weather outside were January. Noah slept with his lips parted.
“I need to sleep,” Elise said.
Mara lowered her voice. “Then sleep.”
“What if he wakes?”
“He will.”
“What if I don’t hear him?”
“I will.”
“You hate babies.”
“I’m reconsidering the category.”
Elise carried Noah to the bassinet, then stood above it longer than necessary, checking the rise of his chest. The white blanket had been removed because the hospital nurse had warned them about loose bedding. Without it, he looked smaller.
She lay on the couch with a pillow beneath her knees.
Her phone vibrated on the counter.
Once. Then again.
Mara looked at the screen.
“It’s Daniel.”
Elise turned toward the back of the couch.
“What does he say?”
“You told me not to decide things for you.”
“I’m asking.”
Mara read silently.
“He says he knows sorry isn’t enough.”
Elise waited.
“That’s it?”
“There’s more.”
“Read it.”
Mara’s voice remained flat. “He says he has no excuse. He says he wants to see Noah when you’re ready. He says he will leave the house if you want to come back.”
Elise stared at the wall.
A framed print of a yellow bird hung crooked above an electrical outlet. She had given it to Mara after finding it at a street fair. At the time it seemed cheerful. Now the bird appeared trapped inside a square of white matting.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“He says he loves you.”
Elise closed her eyes.
That was the part that hurt.
She had never doubted Daniel loved her. She had doubted what his love could survive.
“Don’t answer,” she said.
“I won’t.”
Five minutes later Elise opened her eyes again.
“Did he use Noah’s name?”
Mara looked down at the phone.
“No.”
Elise turned back toward the wall.
May you like
Sleep came in fragments.
She dreamed she was still at St. Agnes, pressing the call button beside her hospital bed. Each time a nurse entered, the nurse had Vivian’s face. Elise woke to Noah crying and could not understand why the ceiling was wrong.
