Chương 4
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“He left you.”
“He left the house.”
“Because of me?”
“No.”
Victoria’s answer came instantly.
Ethan’s jaw worked.
She stepped toward him.
“Never because of you.”
He backed away.
The movement was small but unmistakable.
Victoria stopped.
“He was furious with me,” she said. “He had every right to be. He was humiliated. He was hurt. He wanted to know what Thomas had known, and I had no answer that made any of it better.”
“Did Thomas know?”
“Yes.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
Claire looked down at Noah.
The baby had fallen strangely quiet.
His hand had closed around her wedding ring.
She freed the band gently from his fingers.
Ethan opened his eyes.
“Did Thomas ever try to see me?”
“He saw you often.”
That hit harder.
Ethan sat down.
Not gracefully.
His body seemed to fold into the chair.
The thick dark hair he usually pushed back from his forehead had fallen forward. He rubbed both hands over his face, then hissed when his scraped knuckles touched his cheek.
Claire finally moved.
She set the hospital file on the table and crouched beside him.
“Let me see your hand.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding on everything.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
She went to the bar sink, wet a clean cloth, and returned.
Victoria stood where Claire had left her.
For several minutes no one spoke.
Claire cleaned plaster from Ethan’s knuckles while Noah leaned toward him from her lap.
The baby reached one small hand toward Ethan’s wristwatch.
Ethan looked at him.
The room changed.
Not healed.
Changed.
He let Noah touch the steel band.
Noah pulled at it with solemn concentration.
Ethan swallowed.
“Is he mine?” he asked again.
This time he was looking at Claire.
She felt anger rise so fast it surprised her.
“I have never been with anyone else.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
He looked at her.
“If you knew, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”
“I got a report—”
“You got a piece of paper.”
“With his name and mine on it.”
“And you hit a wall before you asked who collected your sample.”
His face tightened.
She wanted to stop.
She did not.
“I was upstairs feeding our son while you decided a stranger’s envelope knew our marriage better than you did.”
“I didn’t decide that.”
“You decided enough.”
Victoria said, “Claire—”
“Don’t.”
The word came out sharper than Claire intended.
Victoria went still.
Claire returned her attention to Ethan.
“I understand why it scared you. I understand why it looked real. But you looked at him like you were trying to erase seven months in five seconds.”
Ethan’s eyes dropped.
“That is not what I was doing.”
“I watched you do it.”
Noah tugged his watch again.
Ethan covered the baby’s hand with two fingers.
“I’m sorry.”
Claire stood.
“No.”
He looked up.
“Don’t give me that yet.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
She was shaking now.
That irritated her.
She shifted Noah higher against her shoulder.
“I don’t know, Ethan. That’s the problem. I thought if anybody ever accused me of something like this, you would know me before you knew the accusation.”
His face changed.
There was no defense left in it.
Victoria turned away.
Claire looked at her.
“And you knew exactly where to hit him.”
Victoria said nothing.
“That’s why you used this.”
“I knew he would take it seriously.”
“You knew he’d take betrayal seriously because he grew up in a house full of yours.”
“Enough.”
Claire laughed in disbelief.
“No. You don’t get enough anymore.”
Ethan stood slowly.
He looked at his mother.
“Leave.”
Victoria stared at him.
“This is my family too.”
“Not tonight.”
“We have not finished.”
“I have.”
“Ethan.”
He pointed toward the hallway.
His hand trembled.
“Go.”
Victoria’s face hardened from habit, then softened when the habit failed to work.
“Your father made me promise.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
“Maybe. But I don’t care right now.”
She picked up her handbag from the chair near the entrance.
At the doorway she turned back.
Ethan was looking at Noah again.
Victoria said, “Richard never treated you as anything except his son.”
Ethan did not look at her.
“You treated me like property.”
For the first time that day, Victoria had no answer.
The clicks of her heels receded through the hallway.
A door opened in the distance.
Then shut.
Claire stood beside the marble console with Noah against her shoulder.
Ethan stared at the floor.
Neither of them heard Victoria’s car leave.
After a while Ethan said, “I need a real test.”
Claire’s stomach clenched.
He looked at her immediately.
“That came out wrong.”
“No. It came out exactly right.”
“I mean because of the report. Because there can’t be any question left attached to this.”
“There isn’t a question for me.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I need to see the lie destroyed.”
Claire studied him.
That she understood.
She did not like that she understood it.
“All right.”
He nodded.
“We’ll use chain of custody. We both see the collection. No private mailbox garbage. Whatever they need.”
“All right.”
“And I’m sorry.”
She looked toward the wall.
There was blood on one broken ridge of plaster.
“I know.”
“That doesn’t mean you forgive me.”
“No.”
He nodded once.
That answer seemed to hurt him, but he did not ask her to soften it.
Noah began fussing.
Claire checked the time and realized they had blown straight through the baby’s afternoon bottle.
Real life had the indecency to continue.
“I need to feed him.”
“I can.”
She hesitated.
Ethan saw it.
The pause lasted less than a second.
It was enough.
His face closed.
Claire hated that too.
But she handed Noah over.
Ethan took his son carefully.
The baby settled against his chest with the casual trust of someone who had not read the report on the table.
May you like
Ethan looked down at him.
Noah caught a fistful of his white shirt.
