Chương 8
Everett had no answer.
“I’ll make sure—”
Marcus looked at him.
Everett stopped.
Offering money would turn the man’s conscience into a transaction.
“I’m sorry,” Everett said.
Marcus nodded without saying it was all right.
Claire was sitting upright when Everett entered her room.
Her dark hair had been brushed back by someone else. A line ran beneath her nose. Bruising shadowed the inside of one arm. She looked smaller against the hospital bed than she had on the video, but her eyes were fully awake.
Rosa stood near the window. The twins were not present.
Everett stopped inside the doorway.
Claire looked at his open collar.
“You still hate casual clothes.”
Her voice was raw.
“I don’t hate them.”
“You look like you’re being punished.”
He glanced at Rosa.
“She thought you might want a witness,” Rosa said.
Claire closed her eyes briefly. “I said I didn’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll leave if you ask,” Everett said.
“You always leave when asked.”
The words were quiet. They reached him anyway.
He moved to the chair but did not sit until she nodded.
For several seconds, they listened to the monitor beside her bed.
“I saw the video,” he said.
“I assumed.”
“I never wrote that letter.”
Claire looked toward the window.
“I believe you now.”
“Why now?”
“Your mother tried to hit a four-year-old with a cane.”
“She was striking the letter.”
“That distinction would matter more if the four-year-old weren’t standing there.”
Everett accepted the correction.
“The original letter is at my apartment,” she continued. “Bottom drawer of my desk, inside an old camera manual. Rosa knows where.”
“We’ll let your attorney retrieve it.”
Her eyes returned to him. “You have improved.”
“I hired people who tell me when I’m being impossible.”
“Poor people.”
Despite the pain, a trace of her old dry humor appeared. It hurt more than anger.
“Claire, I should have come after you.”
“Yes.”
“I believed you when you said the pregnancy ended.”
“I made you believe it.”
“My mother threatened you.”
“And I listened.”
“You were trying to protect your father.”
“I was trying to protect myself too.” She adjusted the blanket with slow fingers. “I was afraid you would look at me the way she did. Like I had brought mud into a white room.”
“I would not have.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“No.” Claire’s voice tightened, and the monitor quickened. “You know what you want to believe about yourself now. Back then, you let Eleanor approve your apartments, your vacations, the charities you supported. You asked her opinion before you ordered wine.”
“I did not.”
“You changed your order at Alinea because she said pinot made you look indecisive.”
Everett remembered the dinner.
He had laughed at Eleanor’s comment and ordered Bordeaux.
Claire watched recognition move across his face.
“I loved you,” she said. “But I never believed you could choose me against her. That made her threat work.”
A nurse entered, checked the monitor, and asked Claire to slow her breathing.
Everett stood.
“I should go.”
“Sit down.”
He did.
Claire waited until the nurse left.
“The boys called you Dad because I told them that was your name in relation to them. It doesn’t mean they know you. Eli will try to please you because he thinks brave boys are useful. Noah will disappear inside himself if you move too fast. Don’t buy them a room full of things.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You’re lying.”
He looked at the blanket.
“I had an architect at my home this morning.”
Claire let out a breath that might have become a laugh if laughing had not hurt.
“Cancel the architect.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“After he suggested a race-car bed.”
“Good.”
“I dislike race-car beds.”
“That isn’t the lesson.”
“I understand.”
She looked unconvinced.
Everett took the folded hospital wristband from his pocket and placed it on the bedside table.
“Eli gave me this.”
“He wasn’t supposed to carry it. Rosa was.”
“He was afraid Rosa would lose it.”
“She loses her keys.”
“Apparently.”
Claire touched the paper with one finger.
“My mother’s letter was inside the locket,” Everett said.
“I put it there the night I left Chicago. The hidden panel was loose. I thought if I kept the letter, she couldn’t convince me I had imagined it.”
“Why the photograph?”
“I couldn’t make myself throw it away.”
Neither of them looked at the other.
“Daniel found records showing surveillance after the boys were born,” Everett said. “Eleanor knew.”
“I suspected.”
“She watched them at a playground.”
Claire’s face changed.
“What?”
“Eli and Noah described her car. It needs to be handled carefully. No one is assuming their memory is perfect.”
“Which playground?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire reached toward the call button, then stopped because there was no one a call button could summon to fix the past.
“I want her away from them.”
“She will be.”
“You don’t get to promise that unless you can do it.”
“I can.”
“There.” Claire’s eyes sharpened. “That. You still think certainty is the same thing as control.”
Everett lowered his voice. “Then tell me what I can promise.”
“That you’ll listen before you decide.”
He looked at her.
“I can promise that.”
“We’ll see.”
The genetic test was conducted two days later with Claire’s consent.
A technician swabbed the inside of Everett’s cheek while Eli asked whether the stick was searching for tiny fathers in his mouth. Noah refused until Everett allowed the technician to swab him first.
Results would take several days.
“They look like you,” Rosa said afterward.
“That is not evidence.”
“You’re starting to sound like Daniel.”
“Daniel would be pleased.”
“He never looks pleased.”
“He does. One eyebrow moves.”
May you like
The boys returned to Rosa’s apartment while Claire remained hospitalized. Everett visited each evening. He arrived without security when he could, though reporters had begun waiting outside the building.
Rosa lived in a third-floor walk-up in Pilsen. Her husband, Luis, opened the door the first night wearing paint-spattered pants and holding a cabinet hinge.
