Chương 3
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“Is Dad my father?”
Margaret looked toward the windows.
Daniel waited.
Emily wished he would not ask again.
She knew he would.
“Mom.”
Margaret rubbed her palms down the sides of her dark pants.
“You’re asking a question that doesn’t have a simple answer.”
Daniel’s face changed.
Emily felt it happen in herself too.
Some answers announced themselves through avoidance.
Daniel sat down on the other end of the sofa.
He stared at the floor.
“Jesus Christ.”
Margaret stepped toward him.
“Daniel.”
He lifted one hand.
She stopped.
Emily could hear the refrigerator humming from the kitchen.
A lawn mower started somewhere down the street.
Noah slept through everything.
Daniel looked at his mother.
“Does Dad know?”
Margaret’s mouth trembled once.
“No.”
Daniel stood again so quickly that Emily instinctively tightened her arm around Noah.
He did not shout.
That frightened Emily more than shouting would have.
“Thirty-three years?”
“Daniel, please understand—”
“Thirty-three years?”
“I didn’t know.”
Daniel stared at her.
Margaret spoke faster.
“I didn’t know for certain. I still don’t know for certain.”
“You knew there was a possibility.”
“Yes.”
“And you took Dad’s DNA.”
“I was trying to answer another question.”
“You were trying to prove Emily cheated on me.”
Margaret’s eyes filled, though the tears did not fall.
“I thought I was protecting my son.”
Daniel gave a hollow laugh.
“Which one?”
Margaret recoiled.
Emily closed her eyes.
“Daniel.”
He looked at her.
She shook her head very slightly.
The cruelty of the sentence had landed.
Daniel knew it too.
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Sorry.”
Margaret looked away.
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then Daniel said, “Who?”
Margaret did not answer.
“Who could be my biological father?”
“I’m not doing this right now.”
Daniel stared at her.
“You came into my house, tried to take my baby from my wife, told her she cheated on me, and now you’re deciding this isn’t a good time?”
“I made a mistake.”
Emily looked at Margaret.
There it was.
Not I was wrong.
Not I hurt you.
A mistake.
A small noun trying to contain an entire room.
Daniel folded Margaret’s report and slipped it into the hospital envelope with his own.
Margaret reached for it.
“No.”
“Daniel.”
“I’m keeping it.”
“That’s private medical information.”
“It has my son’s name on it.”
“It also has your father’s.”
“My father.”
The words caught.
Daniel looked away.
Margaret’s face finally broke.
Not dramatically.
Her shoulders lowered.
For the first time that morning, she looked fifty-six rather than formidable.
“I loved William,” she said.
Daniel laughed again, quieter this time.
“I didn’t ask if you loved him.”
Emily saw Margaret absorb that.
Daniel walked toward the front door.
“Leave.”
Margaret did not move.
“Daniel—”
“Leave before Dad gets dragged into this while I’m this angry.”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t call him.”
Daniel turned.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t call him.”
Margaret’s fear returned.
“Please don’t do that today.”
“Why?”
“Because once you say something, you can’t take it back.”
Daniel looked at the envelope in his hand.
“You should have thought about that before you came through our door.”
Margaret looked at Emily then.
Not with hatred.
With a desperate kind of calculation.
Emily knew that look too.
Margaret still believed there might be a correct arrangement of words that would put everyone back where they had been an hour earlier.
Emily said, “Go.”
Margaret blinked.
Emily shifted Noah in her arms.
“You don’t get to ask me to help you manage this.”
Margaret’s lips parted.
Emily continued.
“You made me sit here holding my baby while you told me my husband wasn’t his father. You reached for him. You were going to throw me out of my own house before Daniel came home.”
“I was angry.”
“So was I.”
Margaret went still.
Emily looked down at Noah.
“That didn’t make me reach for somebody else’s child.”
Margaret picked up her purse from beside the chair.
At the door, she stopped.
“Daniel, I was twenty-two.”
He stared at her.
She seemed to expect the number to explain something.
Maybe it explained some things.
Not enough things.
Daniel opened the door.
Margaret left.
He closed it gently behind her.
Then he stood with his hand on the deadbolt and did not move.
Emily watched his shoulders.
After nearly a minute, she said his name.
Daniel turned.
He looked younger than thirty-three.
Not boyish.
Stripped of something.
“Is he asleep?”
Emily nodded.
Daniel came over and sat beside her.
He touched Noah’s head through the blanket.
For a while, neither of them said anything.
Then Daniel asked, “Did she really try to take him?”
Emily could have softened it.
She could have said Margaret was emotional.
She could have said it had happened fast.
Instead she said, “Yes.”
Daniel nodded once.
His mouth tightened.
Emily touched his knee.
“I don’t think she would have hurt him.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I know.”
He stared at the coffee table.
“Did she say you were leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus.”
“She also reminded me about the down payment.”
Daniel shut his eyes.
“Of course she did.”
Emily almost smiled.
It was not funny.
Still, something about the weary familiarity of it made a small sound escape her.
Daniel looked at her.
“You laughed.”
“I’m probably having some kind of medical event.”
That got the smallest smile out of him.
It vanished quickly.
Noah opened his mouth in his sleep, searching for something that was not there.
Emily rubbed the back of one finger over his cheek.
Daniel said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“My mother.”
“You’re not responsible for your mother.”
“I brought her into your life.”
“You didn’t build her in a garage.”
He looked at her.
“Another laugh.”
“I’m very sick.”
Daniel leaned back against the sofa.
May you like
For a moment, they were simply two exhausted new parents who had slept in fragments and eaten cereal for dinner the night before because neither had remembered to thaw anything.
Then Daniel looked at the hospital envelope.
