Chương 5
“Yes.”
Mara pressed two fingers against her temple.
“Were you sleeping with my mother before or after she married him?”
“After.”
At least he did not insult her with a euphemism.
“For how long?”
“Not long.”
“That could mean anything.”
“A few months.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Not at first.”
Mara looked at the houses around her, each one displaying some evidence of an ordinary morning: an open garage, recycling bins at the curb, a tricycle abandoned beside a driveway.
“What happened when he found out?”
“He left.”
“My mother?”
“Both of us.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“It was.”
There was no defensiveness in Thomas’s voice, and somehow that made Mara angrier.
She wanted one of them to become simple enough to hate.
“So Mom got pregnant with me.”
“Yes.”
“And Dad came back.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I can’t answer for Richard.”
“You seem to know plenty about his decisions.”
“I know what he told me then.”
“Which was?”
“That he loved Elaine and that the child wasn’t responsible for what we had done.”
Mara looked down at her hand again.
The hand Richard had held while crossing streets, while teaching her to skate, while walking her down an aisle toward Daniel.
Her throat tightened.
“So he knew from the beginning.”
“He knew you might be mine.”
“Might be?”
“There wasn’t a prenatal paternity test on every corner in 1987.”
The practical bluntness of the sentence startled a laugh out of her.
It escaped once and died immediately.
Thomas said, “I’m sorry.”
“You keep doing that.”
“I know.”
“Did you ever ask for a test after I was born?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Richard refused.”
Mara frowned.
“Richard refused?”
“He said he was your father.”
“You could have fought him.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Thomas was silent.
Mara waited.
“I was twenty-nine,” he said eventually.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Another sprinkler started somewhere down the block.
Thomas continued more quietly.
“I was ashamed, Elaine wanted me gone, Richard wanted to keep his family together, and I convinced myself that leaving was the least harmful thing I could do.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It was.”
The absence of self-defense left her nowhere to put the next blow.
Mara picked up a lipstick that had rolled beneath the brake pedal and tossed it onto the passenger seat.
“What does any of that have to do with another baby?”
Thomas’s breathing changed.
“When you were four, Richard called me.”
Mara stopped searching the floor.
“Why?”
“He asked me to meet him.”
“Where?”
“An all-night diner outside Annapolis.”
“You remember the restaurant?”
“I remember everything about that night.”
Something in his voice made her sit back.
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know whether I had contacted Elaine.”
“Had you?”
“No.”
“Why did he think you had?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Thomas paused.
“He looked terrible.”
Mara almost told him that Richard always looked terrible when he was tired, that his eyes became red and his hair stood up in the back, but the observation felt too intimate to give away.
“He told me Elaine had become convinced that something had happened years earlier at the hospital where you were born.”
“What kind of something?”
“He wouldn’t explain.”
“But you mentioned a baby.”
“Because he did.”
Mara waited.
“He said Elaine kept asking about a baby they had lost before you.”
The word lost made her grip the steering wheel.
“Miscarriage?”
“I assumed so.”
“You assumed?”
“He wouldn’t give me details.”
“Then why would Mom need a DNA test thirty-five years later?”
“That’s what I don’t know.”
Mara stared at the dashboard clock.
8:11.
Richard could already be at her house.
Daniel might be there too.
The thought of the two men meeting in her kitchen while she sat parked beneath a stranger’s maple tree created a sudden, irrational urgency.
“I have to go.”
“Mara.”
“What?”
“Whatever Elaine tells you, give her time to finish.”
She laughed without amusement.
“You’re asking a lot for someone who disappeared for thirty-nine years.”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
“I didn’t contact you before the match appeared.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Thomas was silent.
Mara felt the answer before he gave it.
“Elaine contacted you,” she said.
“Three weeks ago.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
“About the tests?”
“Yes.”
“What did she want?”
“To know whether I had submitted DNA.”
“And had you?”
“Years ago.”
“Why?”
“My wife and I never had children.”
He stopped there, as if anything more would sound like an appeal for sympathy.
Mara gave him none.
“What did Mom say when you told her?”
“She hung up.”
Mara looked toward the intersection.
“Did she mention Noah?”
“No.”
“The baby?”
“No.”
“Dad?”
Thomas hesitated.
“She asked whether Richard had contacted me.”
“And?”
“He hadn’t.”
Mara ended the call without saying goodbye.
She called her mother immediately.
Elaine answered on the first ring.
“Where are you?”
“Did you call Thomas three weeks ago?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“So you lied again.”
“I asked you to come here.”
“And I’m asking you a question.”
“I called him once.”
“Why?”
Elaine exhaled.
“Mara, not like this.”
“Did Dad know?”
“No.”
“Does Dad know Thomas is my biological father?”
Her mother did not answer.
“I already know he does.”
“Mara.”
“He knew before I was born.”
“Thomas told you.”
“Yes.”
“I told you not to call him.”
“You don’t get to be angry about which liar I compare notes with.”
Elaine’s breath caught.
Mara regretted the sentence and refused to take it back.
“Come here,” Elaine said.
“Now.”
“Dad’s heading to my house.”
“What?”
“He texted me.”
“He’s supposed to be at the cardiologist.”
“Canceled.”
“Oh, God.”
The fear in Elaine’s voice was unmistakable.
“Why does that matter?”
“Because he can’t know you’ve spoken to Thomas yet.”
“He already knows Thomas exists.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Elaine lowered her voice.
“Where are you?”
“Ten minutes away.”
“Come through the side door.”
Mara stared at the phone.
May you like
“Why the side door?”
“Because Richard installed that stupid doorbell camera and it sends alerts to his phone.”
