Chương 6
“Did he ever see me?”
“Not that I know.”
“You took thirty-three years from him.”
Helen’s face crumpled, but her voice remained steady. “Yes.”
“And you took him from me.”
“Yes.”
“And from Marcus.”
“I didn’t know he had a son.”
“You could have.”
“I was afraid.”
Claire handed the photograph back.
Helen did not take it.
“I was a coward,” she said. “I built a life around avoiding one truth, and after a while every year became another reason not to speak. Your father adored you. Then he got sick. I told myself the truth would only hurt him. After he died, I told myself it would only hurt you.”
“What did you tell yourself yesterday?”
Helen looked toward the NICU, though several floors and locked doors stood between them.
“That you were safe. That your marriage was good. That old blood didn’t matter.”
“And then my babies were born.”
“Yes.”
“What did you think when you saw them?”
Helen’s hand rose to her mouth.
Claire saw the answer before it came.
“I saw Isaiah.”
The room went very quiet.
“Not me?”
“You too.”
“No. You said his name with your face.”
Helen shook her head.
“You saw him before you saw them.”
“I was frightened.”
“You were exposed.”
“Yes.”
Claire adjusted the pillow against her abdomen. The movement sent pain through her side, but she did not ask for help.
“Bring me the letters.”
Helen nodded.
“And don’t call Ethan.”
“I haven’t.”
“Don’t explain him to me. Don’t tell me he was shocked. Don’t tell me he loves me.”
“I won’t.”
“Go home.”
Helen reached for the shopping bag as if she had forgotten she brought it, then left it on the counter.
At the door, she said, “Richard was your father in every way he knew how to be.”
Claire looked at the window.
“He deserved the truth too.”
Helen lowered her head and left.
The next morning, Benjamin developed an infection.
Dr. Shah explained it in plain language, then repeated it when Claire asked the same question four minutes later. Antibiotics were started. More blood was taken. Benjamin’s breathing support increased.
Claire sat beside the incubator in a wheelchair, one hand resting through the opening near his hip. She had been permitted to hold Oliver skin-to-skin for twenty minutes earlier, his body no heavier than a folded towel beneath her gown. Benjamin was too unstable.
Ethan sent eleven messages.
The first five were apologies. The next two asked for updates. Then came a photograph of the empty nursery at home, the twin cribs assembled against the pale green wall.
Claire had chosen the color because it was called quiet fern. Ethan had mocked the name and painted the room anyway.
The eighth message said, I know you hate me.
The ninth said, I hate myself.
The tenth said, Please don’t punish them because of me.
The eleventh was simply, Are they alive?
Claire stared at the screen until the letters blurred.
She typed, Benjamin has an infection. Oliver is stable.
Ethan answered immediately. Can I come?
Claire looked through the incubator at Benjamin’s half-open eyes.
She wrote, Not today.
Then she turned off the phone.
Marcus visited the NICU after his shift ended, but he did not approach until Claire waved him over. He wore jeans and a dark coat. Without scrubs, he looked even taller and slightly uncomfortable, as though the hospital no longer knew where to place him.
“How is he?” he asked.
“Dr. Shah says they caught it early.”
“That’s good.”
“She didn’t say it was good.”
“She wouldn’t.”
Claire looked at him. “Would you?”
“No.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I’m careful. People confuse the two.”
He pulled a chair near the incubator but left space between them.
Claire had asked Helen to bring the letters. Helen had not yet returned.
“Did you tell your mother?” Claire asked.
Marcus rubbed his hands together. The skin across his knuckles was dry and cracked.
“She died six years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She knew my father had been involved with someone before they married. She didn’t know who.”
“Would it have hurt her?”
“Yes.”
The answer came without decoration.
Claire watched Benjamin’s chest rise beneath the tubing.
“Do you wish my mother had stayed silent?”
Marcus leaned back.
“Ask me on a day when your son isn’t sick.”
“That’s an evasion.”
“Yes.”
She almost smiled.
He glanced toward her. “My father was not simple. I loved him. He was also proud, impatient, and terrible at apologizing. When he got sick, he refused help until he collapsed at work. My mother spent years angry about that after he died.”
“What happened?”
“Pancreatic cancer.”
“How old was he?”
“Forty-nine.”
Claire looked at the photograph on her phone. She had taken a picture before returning the original to Helen.
“Did he ever talk about regretting something?”
“Constantly. Parking tickets. Choosing medicine. Not buying stock in a company he read about in 1988.”
“Something serious.”
Marcus crossed his arms.
“Near the end, he said there was a person he had failed because he let anger make the final decision. I assumed he meant a patient.”
“Could he have meant me?”
“He might have meant your mother.”
Claire did not like that answer.
“My mother lied to him.”
“And he stopped writing.”
“She told him to.”
“He still stopped.”
“You blame him?”
“I don’t know him as the man in her story. I know him as my father. Both versions can be wrong.”
A monitor sounded from the next bay. A nurse walked past carrying a syringe inside a clear plastic tray.
Claire said, “Ethan wants to visit.”
Marcus remained silent.
“I told him no.”
“All right.”
“You don’t have an opinion?”
“I have several. None of them are useful.”
“I’m asking.”
He looked through the incubator at Benjamin.
“If he comes because a test proves these boys belong to him, he will be coming for himself.”
“What if he comes before the test?”
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“That still doesn’t mean he’s ready.”
“What would?”
