Chương 4
Mia looked at Nathan.
Then Eleanor.
“Is she staying?”
Lauren understood.
“Yes.”
Mia frowned.
Lauren added, “I’m staying too.”
The girl nodded.
Simon took her to a pair of chairs beyond the interior glass wall. Nathan watched him buy three different snacks because he apparently could not understand which button Mia was pointing at.
Mia finally laughed.
The sound was small and unexpected.
Nathan’s throat tightened.
When he turned back, Lauren was watching him.
“He had that laugh,” Nathan said.
Lauren’s expression hardened immediately.
“Don’t do that.”
Nathan stopped.
“Sorry.”
“You don’t get to look at her for ten minutes and start finding him in everything.”
“You’re right.”
That answer seemed to unsettle her more than an argument would have.
Eleanor walked toward the desk.
“Nathan, Lauren approached me eight years ago claiming she was pregnant with Daniel’s child.”
Lauren laughed once.
“Claiming.”
“There was no proof.”
“You didn’t ask for proof.”
“I asked for time.”
“You asked me how much.”
Nathan looked at his mother.
Eleanor faced him.
“This is why we should not do this tonight.”
Lauren folded her arms.
“Because tonight you have witnesses?”
Eleanor’s gaze snapped toward her.
“Because my son has just been told that a dead man he loved may have left behind a child. I would prefer not to have the most consequential conversation of his adult life while four hundred people wait downstairs and half of them are checking their phones.”
Nathan almost objected.
Then didn’t.
It was the first sensible thing anyone had said in several minutes.
He looked through the glass.
Mia had opened a bag of pretzels. Simon was holding the water now, apparently promoted to beverage service.
Nathan said, “Start with what happened eight years ago.”
Lauren drew a breath.
Eleanor spoke first.
“Daniel was unstable.”
Lauren’s eyes narrowed.
“He was sick.”
“Yes.”
“There’s a difference.”
“There is sometimes.”
Nathan said, “Mom.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Facts.”
Her lips pressed together.
Then she nodded.
“Daniel met Lauren in late summer. I don’t know precisely where.”
“At a diner,” Lauren said.
Eleanor continued as if she had not spoken.
“He was in and out of treatment. He was borrowing money. He lied constantly. When Lauren contacted me, Daniel had already made several claims about changing his life that had not survived a week.”
“I didn’t contact you,” Lauren said.
Nathan looked at her.
“Daniel brought me to your house.”
Eleanor’s shoulders went rigid.
Lauren smiled without humor.
“You left that part out.”
Nathan turned to his mother.
“Did he?”
After a pause, Eleanor said, “Yes.”
The room changed.
Not because the fact proved anything about Mia.
Because Eleanor had already edited the story.
Nathan knew that habit.
In business she called it focus.
Daniel had called it lying with good posture.
Lauren continued.
“I was twenty-three. Daniel was thirty-two. I knew he had money. I didn’t understand how much. Mostly he seemed like a guy who was always losing his keys.”
Nathan looked down.
That was Daniel.
“He was sober when we met,” Lauren said. “At least as far as I knew. Funny. Restless. Annoying. He’d come into the diner at two in the morning and order pancakes and then complain that pancakes were a stupid food.”
Despite himself, Nathan smiled.
“He hated syrup.”
Lauren glanced at him.
“Because it got on his fingers.”
“He ate ribs with a fork.”
“He told me that was civilized.”
“He was wrong.”
For one second, they looked at each other across eight missing years and shared something neither had expected.
Eleanor broke it.
“He relapsed.”
Lauren looked away first.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After I got pregnant.”
Eleanor said, “Before.”
Lauren’s face tightened.
Nathan said, “Does the timing matter?”
“To me it did,” Lauren said.
Her voice had gone quieter.
“Because for years I wondered if I caused it.”
Nathan felt the answer before he could stop it.
“You didn’t.”
Lauren looked at him sharply.
He almost apologized again.
Then she nodded once.
“Daniel found out I was pregnant in February,” she said. “He was scared. I was terrified. We fought. He disappeared for three days. Then he came back and said he wanted to tell his family.”
“You came to the house,” Nathan said.
“Yes.”
“Where was I?”
“School, apparently.”
Nathan looked at Eleanor.
She did not move.
Lauren continued.
“Your mother was very calm. That was the part I remember.”
Eleanor looked at the floor.
“She offered me tea.”
Lauren laughed softly.
“I was throwing up every morning and she offered me Earl Grey.”
“That seems unforgivable,” Eleanor said.
The dry remark was so strange that Lauren stared at her.
Then, against her will, she almost smiled.
Almost.
Nathan felt the room loosen half an inch.
It did not last.
Lauren said, “Daniel told her he was going to be a father.”
Eleanor’s eyes closed briefly.
“And?”
“He said he would get a test. He said he knew there had been other people before him and he wasn’t stupid. I got angry because it sounded like he was accusing me.”
“You were twenty-three,” Eleanor said.
“I was pregnant.”
“You were both frightened.”
Lauren’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Nathan waited.
“What happened after?”
Lauren looked at Eleanor.
“Your mother asked Daniel to leave the room.”
Eleanor did not deny it.
“She told me Daniel was an addict. That he was sick. That he had been arrested twice, that he had been violent once with a man in a parking lot, that he had stolen from his own father.”
Nathan flinched.
Some of it was true.
Lauren saw.
“I didn’t know any of that.”
“You should have,” Eleanor said.
Lauren’s voice sharpened.
“Maybe your son should have told me.”
“He should have.”
That answer stopped her.
Eleanor looked tired now.
Not weak.
Just tired.
“I was trying to frighten you,” she said.
“You succeeded.”
“I know.”
Nathan leaned against the desk.
“What did you want her to do?”
Neither woman answered immediately.
Nathan looked at his mother.
May you like
“What did you want?”
Eleanor folded her hands in front of her.
