Chương 4
“I have somewhere.”
“In New York?”
Claire shifted Nora.
“Yes.”
“With whom?”
Claire’s eyes flashed.
Margaret raised both hands.
“That was intrusive.”
“Very.”
“I’m learning.”
“Late.”
“Yes.”
That stopped Claire.
Margaret looked down at her gloves.
“Very late.”
The station employee approached.
“Last departures are wrapping up. Waiting area on the east side stays open overnight, but we’ll be closing this section for cleaning.”
Claire nodded.
“Thank you.”
He looked at the babies.
“You need a hand with the bag?”
“No, thanks.”
He continued walking.
Ethan watched Claire prepare to move everything alone.
She placed Nora in the carrier, secured her, zipped the diaper bag, hooked its strap over the suitcase handle, folded one blanket, checked Lucy without waking her, then reached for the carrier.
“I’ll take the suitcase,” Ethan said.
“No.”
“Claire.”
“I said no.”
“You can’t carry all of this.”
“I carried it in.”
“Then you shouldn’t have had to.”
She stared at him.
The sentence had come out wrong.
Or perhaps too right.
“Seven months late,” she said.
He nodded.
“Yes.”
That was the first answer he gave that she did not fight.
He picked up the suitcase.
Claire let him.
They moved to the overnight waiting area in a strange procession: Claire pushing the infant carrier, Ethan pulling the worn suitcase, Margaret carrying the diaper bag after asking permission twice.
The waiting area had fluorescent lights instead of amber lamps and rows of molded seats that made everyone look less cinematic and more tired.
Claire chose a corner near an outlet.
Ethan set down the suitcase.
His phone buzzed.
He ignored it.
It buzzed again.
Claire looked at his pocket.
“You should get that.”
“No.”
“You always get it.”
He pulled out the phone.
Three messages from his managing partner.
Two from the client.
One from the car service waiting outside.
He switched it off.
Claire watched him.
“That’s new.”
“What?”
“You used to put it face down and pretend that counted.”
He sat opposite her.
“I’ve matured.”
“You asked why twins come in twos ten minutes ago.”
Margaret made a sound suspiciously like a laugh.
Ethan looked at both women.
“Wonderful. Glad we’re bonding.”
For the first time, Claire smiled.
It lasted less than a second.
But he saw it.
Then Lucy began crying.
Not dramatically.
A thin, exhausted cry.
Claire reached for the diaper bag.
Margaret handed it over.
“Bottle?”
“Probably.”
“Can I warm it?”
“There’s no microwave.”
Margaret looked offended by the station’s failure to provide one.
Claire took the bottle.
“She’ll take it room temperature.”
“Is that all right?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
Claire looked at her.
“I’ve kept them alive this long.”
Margaret lowered her eyes.
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know.”
The apology surprised all three of them.
Claire lifted Lucy and began feeding her.
Ethan watched.
After several seconds Claire glanced at him.
“Could you not?”
“Sorry.”
He looked away.
A vending machine hummed nearby.
A college-aged man slept across three seats with headphones over his face. A woman in scrubs ate pretzels from a plastic bag while scrolling through her phone.
Life continued.
Ethan stared at the departure board visible through the doorway.
“When were they born?”
“February twelfth.”
“Where?”
“UMass Memorial.”
“Were they early?”
“Five weeks.”
His eyes returned to her.
“Yes,” she said. “It was bad.”
“How bad?”
“I’m not doing the medical history tonight.”
“Were you alone?”
Claire’s expression changed.
“No.”
Something ugly and immediate moved through Ethan.
“Who was there?”
Claire stared at him.
Then she understood.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“What?”
“You don’t get to be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I asked a question.”
“In your deposition voice.”
Margaret stood.
“I’m getting coffee.”
Neither of them acknowledged her escape.
Claire adjusted Lucy’s bottle.
“My friend Denise was there.”
Ethan remembered Denise Alvarez, a nurse Claire had known since college.
“She stayed?”
“For three days.”
“Good.”
“Yes. Good.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“Did you have insurance?”
Claire laughed softly.
“There he is.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ethan Cole has encountered a problem. We’re six seconds from a spreadsheet.”
“I’m asking whether you had help paying for a premature twin delivery.”
“I had insurance.”
“Enough?”
“No.”
“How much do you owe?”
“We’re not doing that.”
“I can pay it.”
“No.”
“They’re my—”
He stopped.
Claire looked at him.
“They might be mine,” he finished.
The words sounded awful.
But they were accurate.
Claire nodded slowly.
“Exactly.”
He hated that she appreciated the distinction.
“Do you know?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I wasn’t sleeping with anyone else.”
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean.”
She removed the bottle from Lucy’s mouth and waited for the baby to settle.
“You want a test.”
“I think we need one.”
“Fine.”
The absence of resistance surprised him.
“Fine?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll do it?”
“I said fine.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow, if you want.”
He stared at her.
Claire’s mouth tightened.
“What were you expecting? A courtroom scene?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know a lot tonight.”
“No.”
She looked down at Lucy.
“No,” she said quietly. “You don’t.”
Margaret returned with three coffees.
Claire accepted hers.
“Thank you.”
Margaret sat.
For a while, nobody spoke.
Rain continued against the windows.
Lucy drank.
Nora slept.
Ethan’s phone remained off.
At one in the morning, Claire finally told him the rest.
After meeting Margaret, she had gone home and spent two days trying to decide whether she believed her. Then Richard Cole himself had called.
Ethan had never known.
His father had been polite.
That made it worse.
“He said you were done,” Claire told him. “He said you had asked him to handle it because you couldn’t deal with me anymore.”
“I never said that.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
“Because you look like you’re going to throw up.”
Margaret stared into her coffee.
Claire continued.
Richard had offered money.
Not a fortune by Cole standards, but enough to disappear quietly.
Claire had refused.
“He called it support.”
“It was hush money,” Ethan said.
May you like
“Yes.”
“Did he threaten you?”
