Chương 2
“No.”
“Rachel, please.”
“Your six-year-old knows who I am.”
Daniel’s eyes closed.
That was answer enough.
The ride home took forty minutes because of flooded intersections. Dana drove. Rachel sat in the passenger seat with both hands folded beneath her stomach while the girls occupied the second and third rows of Dana’s minivan.
No one discussed Daniel.
Dana did not try.
That was one reason Rachel loved her.
At a red light, Dana adjusted the windshield wipers and said, “These things are useless.”
Rachel looked at them.
“What?”
“The wipers. I replaced them in April.”
Rachel almost smiled.
Then the feeling disappeared.
Emma leaned forward between the seats.
“Mom?”
Rachel turned.
“Yeah?”
“Is Dad coming home?”
Dana kept her eyes on the road.
Rachel had never lied easily to her children. She disliked parents who treated children like emotionally convenient furniture. But truth, she discovered, could also be a weapon if handed to a child in the wrong shape.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Did he lie about the boy?”
“Yes.”
Sophie looked up.
Lily asked, “What boy?”
Emma answered before Rachel could stop her.
“Dad has another son.”
The minivan became very quiet.
Mia kicked the back of Lily’s seat.
Lily frowned.
“Like before us?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said.
She did know, or thought she did. The boy looked six. Sophie was seven. Lily was four.
The arithmetic was already waiting.
Children were cruelly good at arithmetic.
At home, Dana sent the girls upstairs to change out of their damp clothes and made grilled cheese sandwiches without asking whether anyone wanted them. Rachel sat at the kitchen island, Daniel’s phone resting in front of her like a piece of evidence.
It had locked during the drive.
She had already sent the photograph and both messages to herself while they were still at the conservatory.
She had also photographed the sender’s name.
Claire Mercer.
Rachel knew no Claire Mercer.
Dana slid a plate in front of her.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Dana stopped.
Rachel covered her eyes.
“Sorry.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“I know.”
Dana cut one sandwich diagonally and then, for no reason Rachel could understand, cut the second one straight across.
Rachel watched her.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“One diagonal. One straight.”
Dana looked down at the plate.
“I have no idea.”
Rachel started laughing.
The laugh lasted three seconds and ended in a breath that hurt her chest.
Dana sat beside her.
Rachel did not cry.
At six twelve, Daniel knocked on the front door.
He had never knocked on that door in eight years.
Emma came halfway down the stairs before Rachel told her to go back up.
Daniel stood on the porch in his wet navy shirt. He had changed nothing since the conservatory. A faint red mark remained along his jaw.
Rachel opened the door only far enough to stand in it.
“I want to explain.”
“You should.”
“Can I come inside?”
“No.”
His eyes flicked toward the stairs behind her.
“Are they okay?”
“They watched their mother hit their father and then discovered he has another child. Define okay.”
“I deserved the slap.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t make me feel better about hitting you.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You’re trying to give me a moral discount because you need one yourself.”
Daniel looked down.
Rainwater dropped from the porch roof between them.
Dana appeared behind Rachel carrying a dish towel.
“I’m going to make tea,” she said.
Nobody had asked for tea.
She disappeared again.
Daniel inhaled through his nose.
“His name is Owen.”
Rachel’s fingers tightened against the edge of the door.
“How old?”
“Six.”
“How old exactly?”
“Six. He turns seven in November.”
It was August.
Rachel calculated backward despite herself.
“Were we married?”
“Yes.”
“Was I pregnant with Sophie?”
Daniel did not answer quickly enough.
Rachel nodded once.
“Get off my porch.”
“Rachel, please.”
“Was I pregnant?”
“Yes.”
She stepped backward.
Daniel put one hand against the door, not pushing it, only preventing it from closing.
“Please let me finish.”
Rachel stared at his hand.
He removed it immediately.
“Owen’s mother is Claire,” he said. “We worked together.”
“In Chicago?”
“No.”
That hurt more than she expected.
“Where?”
“Here.”
Rachel laughed once.
“Of course.”
“It was years ago.”
“You saw them recently.”
“Yes.”
“You told me you were in Chicago.”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
Daniel looked at the street.
“Daniel.”
“Over the last few years?”
Rachel felt the baby turn low beneath her ribs.
Her hand went there automatically.
“How many times did you tell me you were traveling for work when you were visiting your son?”
“I don’t know the exact number.”
“You know.”
“Rachel.”
“You know.”
He swallowed.
“Maybe twelve.”
Her face changed.
He saw it.
“Over four years,” he added.
“That sentence did not help you.”
“I know.”
“No. Stop saying that.”
He rubbed his thumb against his finger.
Rachel looked at it.
“How long have you known he was yours?”
Daniel’s hesitation was small.
Small enough that another person might have missed it.
Rachel had been married to him for eleven years.
“How long?”
“Since he was two.”
Something inside Rachel became cold.
At the conservatory, shock had moved too quickly to organize itself. Now the pieces began taking positions.
Four years.
Four birthdays.
Four Christmases.
Four years of work trips, delayed flights, hotel receipts, conference dinners, apologetic calls from airport gates.
Four years during which he had tucked their daughters into bed.
“Were you with her?”
“No.”
“Do not lie because you’re afraid of which lie I’m asking about.”
“I haven’t been with Claire since before Owen was born.”
“Sexually?”
“No.”
“Romantically?”
“No.”
“You have been lying to me with her for four years.”
“Yes.”
The answer was almost a whisper.
Rachel closed the door.
Daniel stayed outside for another fifteen minutes.
Then he left.
May you like
That night, Emma crawled into Rachel’s bed at one fourteen in the morning.
Rachel knew the time because she had been staring at the ceiling since twelve twenty-seven.
