Chương 6
“To what?”
“The truth.”
Margaret returned but stopped when she saw the letter.
Her face changed.
“You wrote him.”
Claire nodded.
Margaret sat slowly.
“I didn’t know.”
Claire gave her a tired look.
“You’re discovering that sentence tonight too.”
At five-twenty, Ethan bought Claire another ticket.
He did not try to stop her.
That surprised her more than anything else.
He bought three.
Claire stared at the tickets in his hand.
“No.”
“You said I could buy you another ticket.”
“One.”
“My mother and I are coming.”
“No.”
“Then I’m buying one and following you on the next train.”
“That’s insane.”
“Probably.”
“Ethan.”
“I’m not asking you to move back. I’m not asking you to hand me a baby. I’m asking to go to New York, help with the bags, and arrange a paternity test.”
Claire looked at Margaret.
“Is he always like this?”
“Yes.”
“I’d forgotten.”
“You used to like it.”
“I used to drink tequila on Tuesdays too.”
Margaret nodded thoughtfully.
“People grow.”
Claire laughed despite herself.
The sound woke Nora.
“Great,” Claire muttered.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said.
“You didn’t invent sound.”
Nora began fussing.
Claire reached down, but Ethan spoke before he could reconsider.
“Can I?”
Claire froze.
“So you can finish your coffee,” he added.
She looked at him.
Then at Nora.
Then back at him.
“You know how to hold a baby?”
“No.”
“That’s not encouraging.”
“I can learn.”
Claire hesitated for so long that Ethan expected the answer to be no.
Then she stood.
“Sit.”
He sat immediately.
“Back against the seat.”
He obeyed.
“Arm here.”
She positioned him with brisk movements.
“Support her head. Always.”
“I know that part.”
“Knowing and doing are different.”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
Claire stopped.
The sentence had landed somewhere beyond baby handling.
She lifted Nora.
Ethan held out his arms.
The first thing he noticed was the weight.
Not heavy.
Real.
Nora settled awkwardly against his chest.
He stopped breathing.
“Breathe,” Claire said.
“I am.”
“You’re literally not.”
He inhaled.
Nora opened her eyes.
For several seconds she studied his tie.
Then she grabbed it.
Ethan looked at Claire.
“What do I do?”
“Negotiate.”
“I’m serious.”
“So is she.”
He carefully loosened Nora’s fingers.
She immediately grabbed the tie again.
Margaret turned away.
Her shoulders moved once.
“Are you crying?” Ethan asked.
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m sixty-seven. My eyes water.”
“Indoors?”
“Age is humiliating.”
Claire sat with her coffee.
For the first time all night, she let someone else hold one of her children.
Ethan understood the significance only because she watched every movement he made.
He did not tell her he understood.
At six-ten, they boarded the train to New York.
Claire took the window seat.
Margaret sat across the aisle.
Ethan sat beside Claire with the carrier positioned safely according to the conductor’s instructions and Claire’s much stricter supervision.
Boston slid away beneath a pale gray morning.
Nobody said much.
Near Providence, Claire fell asleep.
Her head tilted toward the window.
Ethan watched the twins.
He had a hundred questions.
He asked none.
Margaret leaned across the aisle.
“Your meeting.”
He looked at her.
“What meeting?”
“Eight-thirty.”
He had forgotten.
That frightened him.
Ethan Cole did not forget meetings.
He turned on his phone.
Thirty-one notifications appeared.
He called his managing partner from the vestibule.
“David.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“On a train.”
“To where?”
“New York.”
Silence.
“Why?”
“Family situation.”
“You have a nine o’clock with Hargrove.”
“Move it.”
“We can’t.”
“Then you take it.”
Another silence.
David Mercer had worked with Ethan for eleven years. He was accustomed to Ethan taking responsibility, not distributing it.
“Is your mother okay?”
“Yes.”
“You okay?”
Ethan looked through the glass at Claire sleeping beside two children who might be his.
“No.”
David waited.
Ethan appreciated that.
“I need today.”
“All right.”
“And David?”
“Yeah?”
“Pull the original lender reports from December through March. Not the board summaries. Originals.”
“What am I looking for?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That was becoming the theme of his life.
By ten-thirty they were in Queens.
Claire’s new apartment was not a basement exactly.
It was half below street level, with two small windows near the ceiling and a radiator that knocked every few minutes.
It was clean.
Ethan hated that Claire had correctly predicted his eyebrows.
Maribel Santos, the landlord, was a sixty-two-year-old widow with pink reading glasses and immediate suspicion of Ethan.
“You the father?”
Claire set down the diaper bag.
“We’re determining that.”
Maribel looked Ethan up and down.
“Expensive suit.”
He glanced at Claire.
“Apparently my eyebrows aren’t my only problem.”
Claire almost smiled.
Maribel did not.
“Suit doesn’t change diapers.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am. Makes me feel like airport security.”
Margaret liked her instantly.
Within twenty minutes the two older women were discussing radiator noise while Claire unpacked bottles.
Ethan stood uselessly in the middle of the room.
Claire handed him a package of diapers.
“Put those in the bedroom.”
He obeyed.
The bedroom contained a full-size bed and two secondhand bassinets.
One had a yellow star painted on the side.
The other had a moon.
Ethan touched neither.
On the dresser was a photograph of Claire holding both girls in a hospital room.
She looked wrecked.
Happy.
Terrified.
Alone.
He heard Claire behind him.
“Denise took that.”
He turned.
“I wasn’t snooping.”
“You were standing in my bedroom.”
“You sent me in here.”
“Fair.”
She put folded blankets into a drawer.
“Which one is which?”
“In the picture?”
“Yes.”
“Nora’s on the left.”
He looked again.
“How can you tell?”
“I’m their mother.”
He nodded.
Claire closed the drawer.
“The test place opens at noon.”
“You found one?”
“Last night while you were holding Nora.”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“You looked busy.”
“You were planning ahead.”
“I have twins. Planning ahead is the only reason anybody gets fed.”
The DNA collection center occupied a bland office above a pharmacy in Jackson Heights.
There was no dramatic procedure.
May you like
No needle.
No doctor making pronouncements.
