Chương 5
“I was wrong.”
“Do you want a paternity test?”
Another silence.
Claire waited through it.
“Yes,” he said.
Dana’s gaze lowered.
Claire pressed her lips together.
Ethan rushed on. “Not because I think you cheated. Not now. But there’s already doubt. Your mother said this insane thing. The babies look—there’s a genetic explanation, maybe, but I need the answer.”
“You need it.”
“We all do.”
“I don’t.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I know who I slept with.”
He exhaled sharply. “That’s not fair.”
The sentence was so familiar that Claire almost laughed. It had appeared in small arguments throughout their marriage whenever he felt trapped by a fact.
That’s not fair. You know what I meant. You’re making it worse.
She had often backed away to make peace possible.
This time, she let the unfairness stand.
“You can have a test,” she said. “But you don’t get to use the result as a receipt that buys you back into this room.”
“I’m not trying to buy anything.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
He did not answer.
Claire ended the call.
Dana waited until the screen went dark.
“You did well,” she said.
“Don’t grade me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“It sounded like it.”
Dana nodded. “You’re right.”
The apology was immediate and clean. Claire found it almost unbearable.
She turned toward the window.
Below, cars moved through the hospital parking deck. People crossed between buildings carrying overnight bags, flowers, fast-food cups, and folded coats. Somewhere in the city, other families were waking to ordinary problems.
Claire had once believed catastrophe would announce itself by changing everything at once. Instead, a delivery truck backed toward the loading dock. A man in a red hat argued into his phone. The world remained offensively functional.
“Can I prevent Ethan from ordering a test?” she asked.
Dana said, “Testing the babies would require appropriate consent. There are different routes depending on the purpose. The medical team does not need a paternity result to treat them.”
“I agreed to one.”
“You can change your mind.”
“No. I want him to have the answer.”
“Why?”
Claire picked at the edge of the hospital blanket.
“Because I want to know what he does after it proves he was wrong.”
Helen returned that evening with a paper shopping bag containing Claire’s toothbrush, face cream, clean underwear, and the blue socks she wore when sick.
Claire allowed her into the room but did not let her sit.
“Tell me all of it,” she said.
Helen placed the bag on the counter. “You need sleep.”
“I need a mother who stops deciding what I can handle.”
Helen’s shoulders sank.
She opened the locket and removed the photograph. The image had been trimmed by hand to fit the oval frame. On the back, written in blue ink, were the words First white coat. Don’t laugh at the sleeves. I.R.
“He gave me that picture the week we met,” Helen said.
“Where?”
“At a bus stop.”
Claire waited.
“It was raining,” Helen continued, then stopped herself. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe it does to you.”
Helen looked at the photograph.
“I had left Richard. We had been engaged for three years, and he still wouldn’t set a date. My parents liked him because his family owned a hardware store and attended our church. I liked him because he was steady. But steady began to feel like a room with no windows.”
Claire had never heard her mother speak that way. Helen’s usual stories reduced the past to errands and recipes.
“I moved in with my friend Linda,” she said. “She worked at the university library. Isaiah was in medical school. He missed the bus because he was arguing with a vending machine.”
Despite herself, Claire pictured Marcus doing the same thing.
“He was funny,” Helen said. “Not in a charming way. He complained constantly. He hated raisins, he cheated at cards, and he would stop talking in the middle of a sentence if he thought someone wasn’t listening.”
“You loved him.”
Helen’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“Did he love you?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Seven months.”
“That’s all?”
“It was enough.”
Claire looked at the photograph again. “Why did you leave him?”
“I got pregnant.”
“That should answer the opposite question.”
Helen stared at her hands.
“My parents found out about him. My mother came to Linda’s apartment. She said if I stayed with Isaiah, I could forget the family. No wedding. No house. No help. She said people would make your life cruel before you could even speak.”
“People like her.”
“Yes.”
“And you believed her.”
“I had seen enough to believe her.”
Claire’s anger did not disappear. It changed shape.
“What did Isaiah say?”
“He said we would manage.”
“Would you have?”
“I don’t know.”
“That didn’t stop you from pretending you knew Richard was my father.”
Helen flinched.
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I told Isaiah the pregnancy was Richard’s. He didn’t believe me. We fought. He asked for dates. I refused. He asked me to see a doctor with him. I left.”
“You went back to Dad.”
“Yes.”
“Did Dad know you had been with someone?”
“He knew there had been someone. Not who.”
“And when I was born?”
“You were pale. Your hair was light brown. Everyone said you had Richard’s chin.”
“Did that settle it?”
“I let it.”
Claire reached for the photograph. Helen placed it in her palm.
The paper was warm from her mother’s hand.
“Did Isaiah contact you again?”
Helen looked toward the door.
“That is not an answer.”
“He wrote.”
“How many times?”
“Several.”
“Where are the letters?”
Helen pressed her lips together.
“Where?”
“In a box at my house.”
Claire’s fingers closed around the photograph.
“You kept them.”
“Yes.”
“Did you answer?”
“Once.”
“What did you say?”
“That the baby was Richard’s and he needed to leave us alone.”
“And then?”
“He stopped writing.”
Claire examined Isaiah’s handwriting. The ink had faded, but the letters were confident.
May you like
“Did he ever know my name?”
“No.”
