Chương 10
“I love Daniel.”
“I know.”
“I love Noah.”
“I know.”
“I thought you were lying to my son.”
“Because it was easier than considering you had lied to your husband.”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The admission was so direct that Emily almost missed it.
Margaret looked down at her coffee.
“The result came back and I saw zero probability and... I didn’t think. Or I did think. I thought exactly what I wanted to think.”
“You knew William might not be Daniel’s father.”
“Yes.”
“So how did you convince yourself the result proved something about me?”
Margaret laughed once, bitterly.
“Fear is very creative.”
Emily did not smile.
Margaret rubbed the cup sleeve again until one edge tore.
“I told myself William should still have enough biological connection to Noah for the test to show something. I read half of the laboratory explanation and ignored the rest. Then I saw what I wanted.”
“You told me it was Daniel’s DNA.”
“I implied it.”
Emily stared at her.
Margaret closed her eyes.
“You’re right. I lied.”
“Thank you.”
“For admitting that?”
“Yes.”
Margaret looked ashamed.
Emily discovered that seeing her ashamed did not feel nearly as good as she had imagined.
Margaret said, “I wanted you gone before Daniel came home because I was afraid he would see the report.”
Emily frowned.
“I thought you wanted him to see it.”
“I wanted him to believe you had cheated. I didn’t want him to study the actual test.”
The ugliness of the confession sat between them.
Emily nodded slowly.
“That’s worse.”
“I know.”
“You were willing to destroy my marriage to protect your secret.”
Margaret’s mouth trembled.
“Yes.”
Emily looked out the window.
A man at another table was trying to open a packet of sugar and spilling it onto the table.
A toddler near the door refused to put on one shoe.
The world remained insultingly normal.
Margaret said, “I don’t expect forgiveness.”
“Good.”
The word came sharper than Emily intended.
Margaret accepted it.
Emily turned back.
“Why Stephen?”
Margaret looked confused.
“What?”
“Not why did you sleep with him. I don’t need that. Why did you keep him away from Daniel after you told him there was a possibility?”
Margaret was silent for a long time.
“Because William was a better father.”
Emily frowned.
“That wasn’t your decision alone.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
Margaret looked at her.
Emily regretted the certainty.
Maybe twenty-two-year-old Margaret had known and not known a hundred things at once.
Margaret said quietly, “William was stable. Stephen wasn’t. He drank too much then. He changed jobs constantly. He wanted to leave the state. William had a house. Health insurance. Parents nearby. He loved Daniel from the first second.”
“So you decided biology didn’t matter.”
“Yes.”
“And then thirty-three years later you decided it mattered enough to accuse me.”
Margaret flinched.
Emily let the silence stay.
Eventually Margaret said, “I don’t have an answer that makes me look better.”
“That might be the first useful answer you’ve given me.”
Margaret nodded.
Emily took a sip of coffee.
It was lukewarm.
She made a face.
Margaret almost smiled.
Then did not.
“I’m seeing someone,” Margaret said.
Emily stared.
“A therapist.”
“Oh.”
“I thought you meant—”
“I know what you thought.”
For one second, they both laughed.
It was awkward and wrong and strangely relieving.
Then Margaret became serious again.
“I want to see Noah.”
Emily looked at her.
“Not yet.”
Margaret’s face tightened with reflexive disappointment.
Emily saw the old instinct rise.
The argument.
The insistence.
The appeal to family.
Margaret swallowed it.
“All right.”
“That doesn’t mean never.”
Margaret nodded.
“But Daniel and I decide when.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t come to the house without asking.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t take photos and send them to people unless we say it’s okay.”
Margaret frowned slightly.
Emily raised an eyebrow.
Margaret sighed.
“Yes.”
“You don’t make comments about who Noah looks like.”
That one hurt.
Margaret looked down.
“Yes.”
Emily took another sip.
“And if you ever try to use money we accepted from you as authority over our marriage again, I will write you a repayment check even if it takes us ten years.”
Margaret looked at her.
“You don’t need to repay me.”
“Then stop owning it.”
Margaret sat very still.
Finally she said, “Okay.”
Emily left before the coffee was finished.
In the car, she cried.
Not hard.
No collapse.
Just quiet tears that irritated her because she had hoped the conversation would leave her feeling stronger.
Instead she felt tired.
She called Daniel.
“How bad?”
he asked.
“Medium.”
“On the Margaret scale or human scale?”
“Human.”
“That’s concerning.”
Emily wiped her face.
“She apologized.”
“For real?”
“I think so.”
“Do you forgive her?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Emily frowned.
“Good?”
“I was worried you’d come home spiritually evolved and make the rest of us look bad.”
She laughed.
Then she said, “I think someday I might.”
Daniel was quiet.
“Does that bother you?”
“No.”
Another pause.
“Maybe a little.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I don’t want to forgive her yet.”
“Then don’t.”
They stayed quiet on the phone.
Finally Daniel said, “Noah pooped through his outfit.”
Emily smiled.
“I’m coming home.”
William filed for a legal separation two weeks later.
Margaret did not fight him.
At least not publicly.
They disagreed about money.
They disagreed about the house.
They disagreed about whether thirty-three years of marriage after the lie counted as evidence that the marriage had still been real.
William said yes.
Margaret said yes.
They simply meant different things by it.
Daniel met Stephen in person four months after Noah was born.
He flew to Arizona alone.
Emily had offered to come.
Daniel said he needed to find out who Stephen was without watching Emily watch him.
She understood.
Stephen met him at a quiet restaurant near the airport.
Daniel later told Emily that the first five minutes were unbearable.
Stephen stood too quickly.
Daniel shook his hand.
May you like
Neither knew whether to hug.
They sat.
