Chương 2
Claire did too.
“Don’t,” Ethan said to his mother.
“I’m only—”
“Mom.”
Margaret pressed her lips together.
Claire bent to lift the diaper bag. The strap slipped from her shoulder. Ethan instinctively reached for it.
She recoiled.
His hand stopped in the air.
That hurt more than it should have.
He lowered it.
“Where are you going?”
“Not your business.”
“With two babies in the middle of the night?”
Her eyes hardened.
“I’ve been doing things with two babies in the middle of the night for six months. I’m pretty good at it now.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know exactly what you meant.”
A station employee began moving through the concourse, checking beneath benches before the next departure. He glanced at them, recognized the shape of an argument, and chose professional indifference.
Ethan looked at Claire’s suitcase.
The zipper had been repaired with black thread.
He remembered another suitcase.
Blue, hard-sided, absurdly expensive. He had bought it for her before a trip to Montreal three years earlier because the wheel on her old bag squeaked. Claire had called him unbearable for spending four hundred dollars to solve a problem that could have been fixed with a screwdriver.
She had returned it after they broke up.
Not to him.
To the doorman of his building.
No note.
“Where’s the blue suitcase?”
The question escaped before he could stop it.
Claire stared at him.
Margaret gave him a look of disbelief.
Then Claire laughed once.
It was a dry, exhausted sound.
“Seriously?”
“I don’t know why I asked that.”
“I sold it.”
“For this one?”
“For diapers.”
He looked at the worn brown suitcase again.
Something shifted unpleasantly inside his chest.
“Claire, please.”
“Please what?”
“Tell me if they’re mine.”
Her jaw tightened.
A faint announcement came through the station speakers, distorted enough that only fragments were understandable.
Claire checked the departure board.
“You can buy me another ticket.”
“What?”
“That’s what you can do.”
“To where?”
“New York.”
“Why?”
“Because you made me miss this one.”
Ethan stared at her.
“You’re taking two six-month-old babies to New York at midnight and you think I’m going to buy you a ticket and walk away?”
“You walked away before.”
He had no answer ready.
Claire seemed disappointed by that.
Or perhaps relieved.
Margaret lowered herself onto the bench beside the infant carrier.
“May I?”
Claire looked at her.
Margaret pointed toward the nearest baby.
“May I see her?”
Claire’s expression changed.
“How do you know she’s a girl?”
Margaret blinked.
“I don’t.”
“You said her.”
“I guessed.”
Nobody moved.
Then Margaret gave a small, embarrassed shrug.
“I had a fifty-fifty chance.”
Claire looked at her for another second.
Despite herself, the corner of her mouth moved.
“Both girls.”
Margaret closed her eyes briefly.
Ethan turned toward his mother.
She opened them again.
“What are their names?”
Claire hesitated.
“Lucy and Nora.”
Margaret repeated the names under her breath.
Ethan felt something strange at hearing them. Names made the babies less theoretical. A question could be avoided. Two people named Lucy and Nora could not.
“Which is which?”
Claire pointed.
“Lucy is closer to me.”
The nearer baby slept with one cheek pressed against the carrier padding.
“Nora kicks when she’s angry.”
“She’s six months old.”
“Twenty-seven weeks.”
“Sorry.”
“She has plenty to be angry about.”
Margaret glanced at Ethan.
He ignored her.
“Where have you been?”
Claire’s expression closed again.
“Working.”
“At a diner?”
She looked down at her uniform.
“Excellent detective work.”
“I mean where?”
“Worcester.”
“You moved to Worcester?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“It didn’t then.”
Ethan bent and picked up his briefcase.
He was suddenly conscious of his suit, his watch, his shoes, the polished leather case, every expensive thing attached to his body.
Claire noticed him noticing.
That made it worse.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“I know.”
“You could have told me.”
“I tried.”
The words were quiet.
Ethan looked up.
“What?”
Claire shifted the diaper bag higher onto her shoulder.
“I tried to tell you.”
“When?”
She looked at Margaret.
For the first time, Margaret appeared afraid.
Ethan followed Claire’s gaze.
“Mom?”
Margaret stood.
“Not here.”
Claire gave another humorless laugh.
“Oh, now we’re worried about where.”
Ethan looked between them.
“What is she talking about?”
Margaret buttoned the middle button of her coat. She did that when she needed something to do with her hands.
“Ethan, this is not a conversation we should have in a train station.”
“It became one.”
“There are children here.”
“They’re asleep.”
“Not those children.”
She nodded toward a family twenty yards away.
Ethan stared at her.
“Mom.”
Margaret looked at Claire.
Claire said nothing.
That silence answered him before his mother did.
His stomach tightened.
“What did you do?”
Margaret’s face changed.
Not guilt exactly.
Something more complicated.
“Six months ago,” she said, “Claire contacted me.”
“Seven,” Claire corrected.
Margaret accepted that with a small nod.
“Seven months ago.”
“Why you?”
Ethan asked Claire.
She looked at him as if the answer should have been obvious.
“Because you blocked me.”
“I blocked your number after you—”
“After I what?”
He stopped.
After she had left twelve voicemails in two days.
After she had appeared outside his office.
After he had told security he did not want her upstairs.
At the time, it had seemed like evidence that ending the relationship had been necessary.
Now he looked at the sleeping babies.
“What did she tell you?” he asked Margaret.
His mother’s eyes dropped.
“That she was pregnant.”
The station disappeared.
Not literally.
Ethan still heard rain, wheels, a coughing man near the ticket machines. But those things seemed to move farther away.
“You knew.”
Margaret did not answer quickly enough.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“From the beginning.”
Ethan stared at her.
Claire adjusted the blanket over Lucy.
The ordinary movement was almost unbearable.
“You knew for seven months that Claire was pregnant.”
“I knew she said she was pregnant.”
Claire’s head came up.
May you like
Margaret turned toward her.
“I’m not saying you lied.”
