Chương 6
Rachel touched Saturn with one finger.
“What happens to Sophie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dana gets custody?”
“Leah named Dana as guardian in her will.”
“Then why are you involved?”
“Because I’m her biological father.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Legally?”
“I’m not on the birth certificate.”
“Have you talked to a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
Her face hardened.
“When?”
“Thursday.”
“While you told me you had a client lunch.”
“Yes.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
He had no answer that did not worsen things.
“What did the lawyer say?”
“That paternity can be established. Dana’s guardianship isn’t necessarily displaced automatically. It depends on what’s in Sophie’s best interest, what Dana wants, what I pursue.”
“What you pursue.”
“Yes.”
Rachel pulled out a dining chair and sat.
For the first time since the park, she looked tired rather than furious.
“What do you want?”
Ethan remained standing.
“I want to be responsible for her.”
“That is not the same question.”
He waited.
Rachel looked up.
“Do you want Sophie to live here?”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came.
Rachel nodded slowly.
“There it is.”
“I met her properly for the first time today.”
“You’ve known she existed for six years.”
“That isn’t the same as knowing a child.”
“No.”
Rachel looked toward the ceiling, toward Maya’s room.
“It isn’t.”
He sat across from her.
“I don’t want to take her away from Dana. Sophie just lost her mother. I’m not going to walk into court and demand she be moved into a house with strangers.”
“That sounded almost sane.”
“I’m trying.”
“Stop asking for credit for minimum human behavior.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Rachel said, “Did Leah hate me?”
The question surprised him.
“No.”
“She never met me.”
“No.”
“Did she talk about me?”
“Sometimes.”
“What did she say?”
Ethan hesitated.
Rachel’s voice sharpened.
“I am not asking so you can protect me.”
“She said you were innocent.”
Rachel stared at him.
He continued.
“She told me several times that if the truth ever came out, I wasn’t allowed to act like the problem was between you and her.”
Rachel looked down.
Her eyes filled.
“She sounds irritatingly reasonable.”
“She could be.”
Rachel wiped beneath one eye with the side of her thumb, annoyed by the tear.
“Was she?”
“What?”
“Reasonable?”
“No.”
A tiny laugh escaped Rachel.
He almost smiled.
She saw it and her face closed.
The room went quiet again.
Upstairs, something fell.
Both of them looked toward the ceiling automatically.
A second later Maya yelled, “I’m okay!”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Ethan stared at the table.
Their shared reflex had survived the destruction of almost everything else.
That hurt differently.
Rachel stood.
“You’re sleeping in the guest room.”
“Okay.”
“And tomorrow I want every financial record related to Sophie.”
“Okay.”
“Every message with Leah. Every email. Every account.”
He went still.
Rachel saw it.
“What?”
“There are private things in those messages.”
She laughed.
“You had a secret child.”
“I mean things Leah wrote about Sophie. Medical things. Personal things.”
Rachel’s anger paused.
It was the first time Ethan had protected Leah without protecting himself.
Rachel noticed.
“Fine,” she said. “Talk to Dana. I don’t need Sophie’s private medical details. I need to know what affected our finances and what you concealed from me.”
“I’ll get everything.”
“And Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“If you delete one thing, move one dollar, or call some lawyer to figure out how little I’m legally entitled to know, I am done speaking to you except through attorneys.”
“I won’t.”
She studied him.
“I don’t believe promises from you right now.”
He nodded.
“I understand.”
“That sentence too.”
He stopped talking.
The next morning Maya refused cereal because Sophie might be sad.
The logic was unclear.
Rachel did not challenge it.
Maya sat at the kitchen island in her school uniform, pushing blueberries around a bowl of yogurt.
“Does Sophie go to school today?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said.
“She shouldn’t.”
“Probably not.”
“Can I stay home?”
“No.”
“That’s unfair.”
“It is.”
Maya stared at her mother, suspicious of the agreement.
Rachel handed her a spoon.
“Eat three bites.”
“Three?”
“Four.”
“You said three.”
“I changed my mind.”
Maya ate three and a half.
Ethan entered the kitchen wearing the same navy suit he usually wore on Mondays. He had slept maybe ninety minutes.
Maya looked at him.
“Are you taking me?”
Rachel answered.
“I am.”
Maya frowned.
“Dad always takes Monday.”
Rachel picked up her keys.
“Today I’m taking you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to.”
Maya considered objecting.
Then she looked at Ethan.
“Are you in trouble?”
Rachel froze.
Ethan knelt beside Maya’s stool.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
Maya looked impressed despite herself.
“More than when I broke Grandma’s lamp?”
“Much more.”
Rachel turned toward the sink.
Maya whispered, “Did you break something?”
Ethan looked at Rachel’s back.
“Yes.”
“What?”
He chose the only answer he could give.
“Trust.”
Maya frowned.
“That’s not a thing.”
“No. It’s harder to fix.”
Rachel gripped the edge of the counter.
Maya absorbed this, then asked, “Can you use glue?”
Rachel laughed before she could stop herself.
She turned away quickly.
Ethan smiled once, painfully.
“I wish.”
At school drop-off, Maya told Rachel she wanted to invite Sophie to her birthday party.
Her birthday was four months away.
Rachel said they would see.
By lunchtime, Maya’s teacher emailed asking whether everything was all right at home because Maya had told three classmates she had “a surprise sister because Dad forgot to mention her.”
Rachel stared at the email on her phone for nearly a minute.
Then she laughed in the middle of a pharmacy aisle.
A man comparing allergy medicine glanced at her.
Rachel put a bottle of shampoo into her basket even though she had not come for shampoo.
Her hands were shaking.
She texted Ethan a screenshot.
His reply came two minutes later.
I’m sorry.
Rachel typed three different responses.
Deleted all of them.
May you like
Finally:
We need to tell her teacher enough that Maya isn’t left managing this alone.
