Chương 5
“No.”
That surprised him.
Claire shrugged.
“He didn’t need to. He was very good at making the obvious available.”
“What obvious?”
“That you had money, lawyers, a family name, and a company. I had a rented apartment, a job managing a restaurant, and an ex-boyfriend who had told building security not to let me upstairs.”
Ethan looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need that sentence tonight.”
“What do you need?”
“A train ticket.”
He almost laughed.
She did not.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“Why New York?”
“I have a job.”
“In New York?”
“Queens.”
“At another diner?”
“A hotel restaurant.”
“When did you get it?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Where are you living?”
“I have a room lined up in Astoria.”
“With twins?”
“With a woman named Maribel whose daughter works with Denise. She has a basement apartment.”
Ethan tried not to react.
Claire saw him react anyway.
“It’s clean.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your eyebrows did.”
“I have expressive eyebrows.”
“You have judgmental eyebrows.”
Margaret sipped her coffee.
“He gets those from his father.”
The silence after that was different.
Richard Cole had entered the room without being there.
Ethan looked at his mother.
“Why did Dad care so much?”
Margaret did not answer.
“Mom.”
She turned the coffee cup between her hands.
“Because he knew he was dying.”
“That doesn’t explain it.”
“It does if you knew your father.”
“I thought I did.”
Margaret looked at him.
There it was.
The thing he had been avoiding since the station concourse.
Not merely that his father had lied.
That Margaret had helped him.
And that Ethan had made both lies easier by refusing to listen to Claire.
Margaret took a slow breath.
“Your father believed the company would collapse if you lost focus. The debt was worse than you knew. The acquisition was supposed to stabilize us. He thought Claire would pull you away at the exact moment you needed to become him.”
Ethan stared.
“Become him?”
“He used those words.”
Claire looked at Ethan.
He did not look back.
His father had spent thirty years building Cole Development into one of New England’s most successful privately held real estate firms. Ethan had spent the previous ten trying to prove he deserved to inherit it.
Five months after Richard’s death, he still arrived at the office before seven.
Still wore dark ties because Richard had called colorful ones unserious.
Still reviewed contracts on Sundays.
Still heard his father’s voice whenever he hesitated.
“What debt?” Ethan asked.
Margaret looked surprised.
Claire looked between them.
“What debt?” Ethan repeated.
Margaret hesitated.
“Not tonight.”
He laughed.
It was the first genuinely angry sound he had made.
“You don’t get to say that anymore.”
Claire shifted Lucy against her shoulder.
Margaret looked at the baby, then at her son.
“The company was close to breaching two lending covenants last winter.”
Ethan frowned.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“I saw the financials.”
“You saw the board package.”
His stomach tightened.
“Dad changed it?”
“I don’t know exactly what he changed.”
“But you knew?”
“I knew he was frightened.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because you keep asking me to give you clean answers, and there aren’t any.”
Claire looked at Margaret for a long moment.
Something in her expression softened.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition.
At two-thirty, both babies were asleep again.
Claire was not.
Neither was Ethan.
Margaret had gone to the restroom.
Claire sat with her arms folded inside her coat.
“You should go home,” she said.
“No.”
“You have work.”
“So do you.”
“Not tomorrow.”
“When do you start?”
“Monday.”
It was Thursday morning now.
“You were moving four days early?”
“I wanted time to settle them.”
“Reasonable.”
“Thank you for your approval.”
“I deserved that.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the carrier.
“Can I ask something?”
“You’ve been doing that for three hours.”
“Why didn’t you contact me after they were born?”
Claire stared toward the windows.
Rain blurred the city lights beyond them.
“I did.”
Ethan went still.
“When?”
“February thirteenth.”
“How?”
“Email.”
“I never got it.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“It bounced.”
“What address?”
“Your personal one.”
He frowned.
That account had been closed after his father died because of a security breach involving company servers.
“Anything else?”
“A letter.”
“To where?”
“Your house.”
“I never saw it.”
“I know.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because it came back.”
She reached toward the suitcase.
Ethan moved automatically.
“Want me to get it?”
Claire hesitated.
Then nodded.
“Front pocket.”
He unzipped it.
Inside were baby clothes, diapers, a paperback with a bent cover, and a white envelope.
His name was written on it in Claire’s handwriting.
RETURN TO SENDER was stamped across the front.
He stared at it.
The address was his old Beacon Hill townhouse.
He had moved out after Richard died.
The property had been sold in March.
“You sent this when?”
“February.”
He turned the envelope over.
Still sealed.
“Can I?”
“It’s yours.”
He opened it.
The letter inside was only four lines.
Ethan,
They were born yesterday. Two girls. They’re early but breathing on their own. I don’t know what you were told or what you chose to believe. If you ever want to know them, I won’t stop you. I just can’t keep begging you to listen.
Claire
Ethan read it twice.
Then folded it along the original crease.
“Why keep it?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer sounded true.
He returned it to the envelope.
“I’m sorry.”
Claire looked tired rather than angry.
“I know.”
“No. I mean for blocking you. Before any of this. I’m not apologizing for what my parents did as though that gets me out of what I did.”
She watched him carefully.
“I made it impossible for you to reach me because I wanted control over the breakup. I told myself you weren’t respecting boundaries. Maybe sometimes you weren’t. But I made sure I never had to hear anything I didn’t want to hear.”
May you like
Claire looked down.
“That’s closer.”
