Chương 10
His father had not believed he was destroying Ethan’s family.
He had believed he was preserving the correct one.
The company.
The name.
The future Richard had chosen.
That was worse than hatred.
Hatred could be rejected.
Love shaped like ownership was harder to escape because it arrived insisting it knew you.
“Claire needs to see this,” Ethan said.
Margaret nodded.
“Yes.”
He did not take the file to Queens himself.
He called Claire first.
He told her what they had found.
Then he asked whether she wanted it.
There was a long silence.
“Yes.”
“I can bring it.”
“No.”
He felt the refusal.
Then Claire added, “Mail it.”
“Okay.”
“Tracked.”
Despite everything, he smiled.
“Tracked.”
The package arrived two days later.
Claire did not call for a week.
Ethan did not call her except about the girls.
On the eighth night, she called after midnight.
“I read it.”
He sat up in bed.
“Okay.”
“I threw up.”
He closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“I kept thinking maybe I’d exaggerated him in my head.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“What do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
He waited.
Claire breathed quietly into the phone.
“He followed me.”
“I know.”
“There are pictures of me buying prenatal vitamins.”
“I know.”
“One of me outside Denise’s apartment.”
“I know.”
“I look awful.”
Ethan almost laughed.
Then he realized she was crying.
Not loudly.
He had almost never heard Claire cry.
“Do you want me to come?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Another silence.
“Maybe.”
He was already reaching for his jeans.
“Okay.”
He arrived in Queens at two-fifteen in the morning.
Claire opened the door before he knocked.
The file was spread across the kitchen table.
She had made coffee.
Neither drank it.
Ethan sat across from her.
“I hate him,” she said.
He nodded.
“I know.”
“And he’s dead, so there’s nowhere to put it.”
“I know.”
“I hate your mother too.”
“I know.”
“And sometimes I don’t.”
“I know.”
“That’s annoying.”
“What?”
“You saying you know.”
“Sorry.”
She rubbed her face.
“I hate you a little.”
He swallowed.
“That one I deserved.”
“I hate myself too.”
“No.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Claire looked down at the photographs.
“I should have tried harder.”
“You tried.”
“I should have gone to your office again.”
“I had security keep you out.”
“I could have gotten a lawyer.”
“You were pregnant and working.”
“I could have—”
“Claire.”
She looked at him.
He spoke carefully.
“There are things I did wrong. There are things you did wrong. But you are not going to take responsibility for my father hiring someone to follow you and lying about me.”
Her face tightened.
“You don’t get to assign responsibility either.”
“No.”
He leaned back.
“You’re right.”
She stared at him for a long time.
Then she pushed the file away.
“I’m so tired.”
“Go to bed.”
“What about the girls?”
“I’ve got them.”
“You have work.”
“So do you.”
“You have that lender meeting.”
He looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“You complain.”
“I share.”
“You complain with vocabulary.”
He smiled.
“Go sleep.”
She stood.
At the bedroom doorway she stopped.
“Ethan.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for showing me.”
He looked at the file.
“I almost didn’t want to.”
“I know.”
“But you needed to choose.”
Claire studied him.
Something changed in her face.
Not forgiveness.
Not love.
Trust, perhaps, moving one inch.
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
Spring came slowly.
Cole Development stabilized.
Ethan remained president.
David became CEO.
Margaret began seeing a therapist, which she announced with the tone of someone admitting to tax fraud.
Claire did not tease her.
Ethan did.
“You have feelings now?”
“Apparently. Expensive ones.”
“Good therapist?”
“I dislike her.”
“So yes.”
Margaret smiled.
In April, Lucy and Nora spent their first weekend in Boston.
Claire came too.
She insisted on a hotel.
Ethan did not argue.
On Saturday afternoon they took the girls to the Public Garden.
Nora tried to eat a leaf.
Lucy became fascinated by a pigeon.
Margaret bought coffee.
For nearly an hour nobody discussed Richard, money, custody, lies, or the future.
They sat on a bench while ordinary people moved around them.
A runner stopped to retie his shoe.
A child dropped half a muffin.
Someone’s dog barked at a duck.
Ethan held Lucy.
Claire held Nora.
Their shoulders touched once.
Neither moved away.
That evening, after the girls were asleep at the hotel, Claire stood by the window looking down at Arlington Street.
“You asked me something at Christmas.”
Ethan was folding a tiny sweater badly.
“I ask many things.”
“You know which one.”
He stopped.
“Yes.”
Claire turned.
“Ask again.”
He put the sweater down.
“Is there any chance for us?”
She looked at him for so long that the old Ethan would have begun bargaining.
This Ethan waited.
“Yes,” she said.
He exhaled.
“One.”
“One what?”
“One chance.”
He nodded.
“What are the rules?”
Claire almost smiled.
“Of course you ask for rules.”
“I like clarity.”
“No grand gestures.”
“Fine.”
“No solving my life.”
“Harder.”
“No making decisions for me because you think the outcome is obviously better.”
“Very hard.”
“No pretending we’re a family just because we share children.”
He looked toward the adjoining room where the girls slept.
“Okay.”
“And if this doesn’t work—”
“We still parent them.”
“Yes.”
“Agreed.”
Claire walked closer.
“One more.”
“What?”
“You don’t get to become your father just because you’re afraid of becoming your father.”
He stared at her.
That one went deeper than the others.
“I don’t know how to promise that.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“If you’d promised, I wouldn’t believe you.”
She stood in front of him.
He did not touch her.
After a moment Claire leaned forward and kissed him.
It was not dramatic.
No music.
No rain against cathedral windows.
Just a tired woman in a hotel room kissing a man she had once loved and might love again.
When she pulled away, Ethan looked at her.
“Was that—”
“Don’t evaluate it.”
May you like
“I wasn’t.”
“You absolutely were.”
