Chương 5
That was the difficulty.
He had not disappeared when she learned the truth.
He remained visible underneath it.
“Five minutes,” Claire said.
Leah looked at her.
“I’m staying in the kitchen.”
“That’s fine.”
Ethan stepped inside.
Franklin growled.
Ethan stared at him.
“Seriously?”
Leah said, “He has excellent instincts.”
Claire led Ethan into the small front room.
He remained standing.
So did she.
His eyes went immediately to her stomach.
“How are you?”
“Don’t.”
“I’m asking because—”
“I know why you’re asking.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“I’ve been trying to call.”
“I know.”
“Mom wouldn’t tell me where you were. I guessed.”
“Congratulations.”
He looked hurt by that.
Claire almost laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Claire, I screwed up.”
She stared at him.
“I know that sounds inadequate.”
“It sounds grammatical.”
He closed his eyes.
“I don’t know how to begin.”
“November.”
His eyes opened.
“What?”
“Begin in November.”
He looked toward the window.
Claire watched him choose his words.
She had watched Ethan choose words for years. In business meetings he was very good at it. He could sound spontaneous while arranging each sentence around the outcome he wanted.
Now she could see the machinery.
“I was unhappy,” he said.
“With me?”
“With everything.”
“No. We’re not doing everything.”
He looked at her.
“You were sleeping with another person. You can probably narrow the category.”
His jaw tightened.
“We weren’t good.”
Claire folded her arms.
“When?”
“For a while.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“You managed to give Vanessa a month.”
He winced.
“November.”
“Yes.”
“We were fighting constantly.”
“We argued about your travel.”
“And money.”
“We argued because you wanted me to quit working.”
“I never said quit.”
“You said my salary wasn’t worth what the stress was doing to the pregnancy.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“It felt the same to me.”
Ethan shook his head.
“This is what I mean. Every conversation became a trial.”
Claire stared at him.
There was the shift.
Small.
Almost elegant.
He had begun apologizing and arrived, within three minutes, at her tone.
She said, “Did my argumentative personality make you propose to Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Good. We’ve eliminated one possibility.”
“Claire.”
“Did you love her?”
He looked at the floor.
The hesitation hurt more than yes would have.
“I thought I did.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know what I think.”
She nodded.
“That may be the first accurate thing you’ve said.”
He stepped closer.
She stepped back.
He stopped.
“I didn’t plan any of this.”
“You bought a ring.”
“I mean I didn’t plan for it to become—”
“Real?”
He looked furious then.
Not at her exactly.
At the shape of the conversation.
“I was trying to find a way out.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know, Claire.”
His voice rose.
Franklin barked from the kitchen.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“I felt trapped.”
Claire touched the edge of a bookshelf.
“You were free.”
“It didn’t feel that way.”
“You could have left me.”
“You were pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“That changes things.”
“It changes what a decent person does. It doesn’t eliminate doors.”
He looked at her belly again.
“I never doubted the baby was mine.”
Claire went completely still.
He realized too late what he had admitted.
She said, “Then why did you tell Vanessa you did?”
He sat down.
The anger went out of him.
For the first time since he arrived, he looked ashamed rather than frightened.
“Because she asked why I was still living with you.”
Claire waited.
“I needed it to make sense.”
“For her.”
“For me too.”
“Say it properly.”
He looked up.
“What?”
“Say what you did.”
He stared at her.
Claire heard Leah open a cabinet in the kitchen, then close it.
Ethan said, “I lied.”
“About?”
“The baby.”
“To make cheating on your pregnant fiancée seem less ugly.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
Claire looked away.
She had imagined this conversation all night.
In none of the versions had he admitted that so plainly.
It did not make her feel better.
It made the room smaller.
Ethan stood.
“I was going to end it with Vanessa.”
“When?”
“After Chicago.”
“You proposed in Chicago.”
“I know.”
“Then when?”
“After the gala.”
Claire laughed.
He looked miserable.
“That’s why you told her I wouldn’t be there.”
“I was going to talk to her first.”
“At a gala?”
“I was trying to avoid—”
“This?”
He stopped.
Claire waited.
He nodded.
“Yes.”
She looked at him for a long time.
“You keep saying you were trying to avoid this as if this happened to you.”
“I know.”
“No. You say you know.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
There it was.
The question Ethan asked when he wanted an instruction he could later call obedience.
Claire had once loved that he was practical.
Now it made her tired.
“I want you to leave.”
“Claire.”
“You asked.”
“Can we talk about the apartment?”
“Not today.”
“The baby?”
“Not today.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
He flinched at hearing his own phrase returned.
Claire did not enjoy it.
That disappointed her.
She had imagined enjoying at least one cruel thing.
Instead she was hungry.
Absurdly, painfully hungry.
Her stomach growled.
Ethan looked down.
Claire closed her eyes.
From the kitchen Leah shouted, “There are bagels.”
Ethan almost laughed.
Claire did not.
“Go,” she said.
He moved toward the door.
Then stopped.
“I love you.”
Claire looked at him.
That sentence had become so complicated she could not find a place to put it.
“I believe you,” she said.
His face changed.
He had expected denial.
She continued.
“That’s one of the worst parts.”
He left.
On Monday, Claire went to work.
Martin looked up from his desk when she arrived and said nothing about the fact that photographs from the Bell Meridian gala had already begun circulating through the peculiar ecosystem of Manhattan wealth, where privacy disappeared without anything technically becoming public.
There was no dramatic video.
May you like
No viral clip.
A few guests had taken pictures after the confrontation, but nobody had captured the bracelet hitting the champagne.
