Chương 4
“What else?”
“Michael didn’t disappear after that.”
Daniel went still.
Emily could hear the rain running through the gutters outside.
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“He contacted me on and off for about three years.”
Emily stared.
“Three years.”
“Yes.”
“You spoke to him for three years.”
“Not regularly.”
“Please don’t make that distinction like it matters.”
“It matters to me.”
“That is currently not my biggest concern.”
Margaret sat on the folding chair near the furnace.
Her cardigan sleeve had twisted at the wrist. She fixed it absently.
“He would call from different numbers. Sometimes months passed. Once almost a year. He asked for pictures.”
“You sent him pictures?”
“A few.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Daniel spoke for the first time.
“Did he ever see Noah again?”
Margaret hesitated.
Emily opened her eyes.
“Mom.”
“Twice.”
The word seemed to strike her physically.
“When?”
“Once when Noah was almost two. Once when he was three.”
“Where?”
“A park.”
“You took my child to meet him?”
“You were working.”
Emily stepped backward.
Daniel stood.
“Margaret, Jesus Christ.”
“He never touched him improperly, never took him anywhere, never—”
“That is your defense?” Emily said.
“No.”
“You secretly arranged meetings between my child and a man with a drug arrest?”
“He was sober then.”
“You did not know that.”
“He had documentation from a program.”
“You mean a piece of paper?”
“I called the facility.”
“You investigated him more carefully than you informed me.”
Margaret flinched.
That sentence got through.
Good, Emily thought.
Then she hated herself for thinking it.
She went upstairs.
Daniel followed.
“Emily.”
She kept walking.
Noah sat cross-legged on the living room rug watching an animated movie with the volume too low. Captain sat upright beside him.
He looked at her immediately.
“Are you mad?”
“Yes.”
“At me?”
“No.”
“Grandma?”
Emily glanced toward the basement.
“Yes.”
Noah considered this.
“Dad?”
“No.”
Daniel, behind her, made a slight movement.
Emily noticed.
She looked at him.
Something was wrong.
Not the obvious thing.
Something else.
“Go help Grandma pick up the photographs,” she said.
Daniel frowned. “What?”
“I want to talk to Noah.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He understood that she was also removing him.
He did not argue.
When the basement door closed behind him, Emily sat on the rug.
Noah turned off the television.
She had not asked him to.
That hurt too.
“Come here.”
He crawled over.
Emily held him.
His body still fit against hers, but barely. He was getting long in the limbs, all elbows and knees.
“Daniel is your dad,” she said.
“Grandma said there’s another dad.”
“There’s a man named Michael who helped make you.”
Noah pulled back.
“Like science?”
Emily almost smiled.
“Kind of.”
“Did you marry him?”
“No.”
“Did you love him?”
The question was absurdly adult and entirely childlike.
“For a while.”
“What happened?”
“He wasn’t ready to be a parent.”
“Why?”
“There are things about grown-ups that are complicated.”
“That means bad.”
“Sometimes.”
“Was he bad?”
Emily paused.
She could have said yes.
It would have been easy.
It would also have been unfair in ways she was only beginning to recognize, which made her angrier.
“He made choices that hurt me.”
Noah picked at a loose thread on Captain’s paw.
“Did he hurt me?”
“He left before you could know him.”
“That’s hurting.”
Emily looked at him.
“Yes,” she said. “It is.”
He leaned into her again.
“Does Dad know?”
“Yes.”
“Did Dad know before today?”
Emily started to answer automatically.
Then she stopped.
Daniel’s face when he saw the suitcase.
His reaction to the photograph.
The tiny hesitation when Noah asked, Are you my dad?
“I think so,” she said.
Noah went quiet.
Emily wished she could pull the words back.
But he had already been surrounded by adults editing reality for him.
She would not join them.
Not tonight.
She stood.
“Stay here.”
“Mom.”
“I’m not leaving the house.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She found Daniel at the kitchen sink.
He was staring into the dark window.
Margaret remained downstairs.
Emily closed the kitchen door.
“How long have you known?”
Daniel turned.
“Known what?”
“Don’t.”
His shoulders lowered.
“I knew Michael contacted your mom.”
“How long?”
“About five years.”
The answer hurt differently from Margaret’s.
Cleaner.
Sharper.
“Five years.”
“Emily—”
“You knew he met Noah?”
“No.”
She watched his face.
“No?”
“No.”
“You’re sure.”
“I knew he had tried to get updates through Margaret. I knew he’d written something. I did not know she’d taken Noah to see him.”
“How did you know any of it?”
Daniel leaned against the counter.
“Your mom told me.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked why she hated me.”
Despite herself, Emily blinked.
“What?”
“The first year we were dating. She barely spoke to me.”
“She liked you.”
“No, she tolerated me with impressive manners.”
Emily folded her arms.
“That is liking someone in her language.”
Daniel almost smiled.
It vanished.
“She finally told me she was worried you were moving too fast because of what happened with Michael. Then she told me he’d contacted her.”
“And you decided not to tell me.”
“She said you knew.”
Emily stared.
“She said what?”
“That he had reached out and you wanted no contact.”
“She lied.”
“I know that now.”
“You never asked me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Daniel looked toward the living room.
“Because every time Michael’s name came up, you shut down.”
“So you decided for me.”
“I decided not to drag someone you hated back into your life.”
“You decided.”
“Yes.”
Emily hated the steadiness of his answer.
It left her nothing easy to attack.
“Did you know about the letter?”
“I knew there was one.”
“The suitcase?”
“No.”
“The photographs?”
“No.”
“The meetings?”
“No.”
She studied him.
“I believe you.”
His face changed with relief.
She continued.
“I’m still furious.”
“That makes sense.”
“Don’t be reasonable right now.”
“I’m trying not to make this worse.”
“That might be impossible.”
May you like
He nodded.
For a while they stood in the kitchen listening to the rain.
