Chương 5
His brows lifted.
“Excuse me?”
“Natalie’s message says not to give him to you. I ignored that. I also had him in the service wing when you found us. Tomorrow, somebody may decide that looks bad for me.”
Samuel’s head came up.
Claire continued.
“I want a written statement that I stayed at your request after six fifteen tonight and that the baby remained in this house.”
Adrian stared at her.
Samuel’s mouth twitched.
“I can do that.”
Claire looked at Adrian.
He gave one short nod.
“Do it.”
At eleven forty, Claire sat in the nursery armchair with a paper cup of coffee and watched Adrian sleep on the floor.
He had refused the guest bed.
He had also refused to leave the baby.
So he had taken a pillow from the window seat and stretched out beside the bassinet in his trousers and black shirt.
The shirt still had the pale formula mark near his collarbone.
Claire had never seen him without shoes inside the house.
His socks were dark gray.
That detail struck her as absurdly private.
The baby slept with both arms raised beside his head.
Claire had learned that newborns looked deeply offended even while unconscious.
She took a sip of coffee.
Cold.
She drank it anyway.
At twelve eighteen, the baby woke.
Adrian woke before Claire stood.
He came upright too fast and hit his shoulder against the bassinet.
“Damn it.”
Claire covered her mouth.
He looked at her.
“You laughed.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“I inhaled wrong.”
The baby began to cry.
Adrian got to his feet.
“Bottle.”
“Already warming.”
“How?”
“I heard him before you did.”
He looked irritated by that.
Good, Claire thought.
Irritation was easier than devastation.
They fed the baby together.
At twelve forty-seven, Adrian asked, “What does Natalie call him?”
Claire looked over.
“The baby?”
“Yes.”
“Theodore.”
“I know his name.”
Claire waited.
Adrian stared at the bottle.
“Does she call him Theo?”
“Mostly.”
“I call him Theo.”
“Yes.”
“Did Ethan?”
Claire lowered her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
He was quiet.
After a while he asked, “Did you ever see them together?”
“Natalie and Ethan?”
“Yes.”
Claire tried to decide whether honesty required cruelty.
“Not like that.”
“What does that mean?”
“I saw them talk.”
“Everyone saw them talk.”
“Yes.”
“Anything unusual?”
Claire remembered a Sunday afternoon in March.
Ethan had stood in the kitchen eating strawberries directly from a bowl Mrs. Alvarez had prepared for a tart. Natalie came in. She stopped when she saw him.
Nothing happened.
No touching.
No guilty silence.
Ethan only said, “You look tired.”
Natalie said, “You look unemployed.”
He laughed.
She did not.
At the time Claire had thought it was ordinary family irritation.
Now she remembered the way Ethan set the strawberry down instead of eating it.
“I don’t know,” Claire said.
Adrian’s face closed.
Claire understood why.
He wanted a witness to give him the moment he had missed.
Something obvious enough to justify not seeing it.
There probably wasn’t one.
“Sorry.”
He looked at her.
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Apologizing because other people are uncomfortable.”
Claire almost answered.
Then she didn’t.
That was too close to a truth she had spent years avoiding.
At two in the morning, Adrian changed a diaper correctly.
At four thirteen, he did it wrong again.
At six, Victoria came upstairs carrying coffee and wearing the same clothes.
She stopped when she saw Adrian in the chair with Theo asleep against his chest.
Her expression softened.
Adrian saw.
“Don’t.”
Victoria handed him a coffee.
“You really need a new word.”
Claire stood and stretched.
Her spine made a small pop.
Victoria gave Claire a second cup.
“Thank you.”
Claire took it.
“Did Natalie answer you?”
Victoria shook her head.
“She spoke to her doctor again. She agreed to meet us at Samuel’s office at eleven.”
Adrian looked at the baby.
“Us.”
“You and me.”
“No.”
Victoria’s eyes narrowed.
“She specifically asked me to be there.”
“That is exactly why you’re not.”
“Adrian.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You sat in the hospital and watched me hold him.”
Victoria went still.
Claire wished she were not in the room.
Adrian continued.
“You took a picture.”
Victoria looked down.
“You sent it to Dad.”
Their father had been in Florida recovering from hip surgery. He had cried on FaceTime when he saw the baby.
Victoria’s voice was quieter.
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“I knew there was a report.”
“You knew enough.”
“Yes.”
He drank his coffee.
Claire thought the argument had ended.
Then Adrian said, “How did Ethan react?”
Victoria’s face changed.
That was the question she had been avoiding.
She moved to the window.
“He was angry.”
“At Natalie?”
“At himself. Then at her. Then at me because I was there.”
“What did he want?”
“To tell you.”
The words settled heavily.
Adrian looked at her.
“And you stopped him.”
“I asked him to wait.”
“Why?”
“Because Natalie was seven months pregnant, he had just learned he might be the father, and you were in Chicago trying to close the Phoenix acquisition. Nobody had proof yet.”
“He gave a sample.”
“After that conversation.”
“You convinced him to wait for the test.”
“Yes.”
“He died before the result came.”
“Yes.”
Adrian looked away.
Victoria folded her arms.
“I did not know he was going to die.”
“I know.”
The softness of the answer hurt more than anger would have.
Victoria’s eyes reddened.
For the first time since Claire had known her, she looked her age.
Maybe older.
“I thought I was buying forty-eight hours,” she said.
Adrian said nothing.
“I thought we would get the result and then sit down. All four of us. I thought there would be an awful week and then lawyers and shouting and whatever came after that. I did not think—”
Her voice caught.
She stopped.
Claire watched Adrian.
He did not comfort her.
He did not punish her either.
May you like
He simply held the sleeping baby.
Victoria wiped beneath one eye with the side of her finger and looked irritated by the moisture.
