Chương 3
“That’s true.”
“I have rights.”
“Yes.”
Her agreement irritated him more than resistance.
“I’m not abandoning Eli.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You’re setting this up to look like I did.”
“No, Daniel. You packed Vanessa’s clothes into our house while you believed I was gone.”
Vanessa flinched.
Daniel’s head turned.
Rachel saw it.
The anger he gave Vanessa was small but unmistakable.
It changed something in the room.
Vanessa had arrived believing herself to be a woman entering a difficult new chapter with a man who had finally chosen her.
Now she looked like someone discovering that every doorway had been painted on.
Rachel called her attorney.
Margaret answered on the fourth ring.
“Rachel?”
“He’s here.”
A pause.
“In the house?”
“Yes.”
“Is he threatening you?”
“No.”
“Is Eli with you?”
“Upstairs.”
“Good. Do not argue about the property terms. Give Daniel the copy. He can call Paul. If he refuses to leave, call me back before you do anything else unless you feel unsafe. If you feel unsafe, call 911.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“This is insane.”
Margaret heard him.
“Daniel,” she said through the speaker, “your attorney has the executed stipulation.”
He leaned toward the phone.
“Margaret, this is not enforceable the way Rachel thinks it is.”
“Then Paul can address that with me tomorrow.”
“I need access to my belongings.”
“Rachel packed the items you identified in your disclosure.”
“You people planned this.”
Margaret was silent for a moment.
Then she said, “Daniel, you requested the separation terms.”
That landed harder than anything Rachel had said.
Daniel stepped away.
Rachel ended the call.
For a while nobody moved.
Then Vanessa said, “I need to sit somewhere else.”
She pushed herself up and walked toward the dining room.
Daniel reached for her arm.
She moved away before he touched her.
“I’m fine.”
He dropped his hand.
Rachel watched the distance open between them.
It was not satisfying.
She had spent the previous two weeks imagining satisfaction in ridiculous detail. Daniel’s stunned face. Vanessa’s embarrassment. Her own perfect composure. Some line that would make the entire betrayal collapse neatly around them.
Reality was less elegant.
Her stomach hurt.
Her son was upstairs pretending not to listen.
A pregnant woman who had slept with her husband had nowhere obvious to put her purse.
And Rachel could smell the chicken she had left thawing in the refrigerator.
“Did you eat?” she asked Vanessa.
Everyone stared at her.
Rachel hated herself immediately.
Vanessa blinked. “What?”
“You’re pregnant. Did you eat?”
Daniel said, “Rachel, Jesus.”
“I’m not asking you.”
Vanessa put one hand against the back of a dining chair.
“I had half a sandwich.”
Rachel opened the refrigerator.
There was chicken, salad greens, Eli’s yogurt, three lemons, a jar of mustard, and the remains of pasta from the night before.
She shut the door.
“I can order something.”
Vanessa stared at her.
“I don’t understand you.”
“That makes two of us.”
Daniel said, “Can we stay on the actual issue?”
Rachel turned.
“The actual issue is that you’re leaving.”
“I am not walking out of here like some criminal.”
“No one called you a criminal.”
Vanessa said, almost under her breath, “Not yet.”
Daniel looked at her sharply.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Vanessa did not answer.
Rachel noticed.
“Vanessa?”
Daniel spoke first. “Don’t.”
Rachel looked at him.
There was fear now.
Not alarm.
Fear.
It was the first moment she understood the affair might not be the largest thing he had hidden.
Vanessa picked up her purse.
“I should go.”
Daniel moved toward her. “We came together.”
“I can get a car.”
“You’re thirty-two weeks pregnant.”
“Thirty-one.”
“You shouldn’t be standing outside waiting.”
“Then I’ll wait inside.”
He lowered his voice. “Vanessa.”
She looked at him with a tired expression.
“Please stop saying my name like it’s an instruction.”
Rachel turned away.
She did not want to like that sentence.
Daniel dragged a hand down his face.
“Everybody’s emotional.”
Rachel leaned against the kitchen island.
“No. You are losing control. Those are different things.”
His eyes flashed.
“Do you want me to say I’m sorry? Is that what this is?”
“No.”
“Because I am sorry.”
Vanessa looked at him.
Daniel kept his eyes on Rachel.
“I handled this badly.”
Rachel stared.
“Badly?”
“Yes.”
“You told another woman she could move into my house.”
“Our house.”
She did not correct him.
He corrected himself.
“The house.”
Vanessa opened a rideshare app on her phone.
Daniel went toward her.
Rachel saw the screen briefly: three canceled requests.
“There’s a concert downtown,” Vanessa said. “Everything’s twenty minutes away.”
“You don’t need to leave,” Daniel said.
Vanessa looked around the room.
“I very clearly need to leave.”
Rachel took her car keys from the bowl on the counter.
“I’ll drive you.”
Daniel and Vanessa both said, “No,” at the same time.
Rachel stared at them.
Vanessa gave a nervous, humorless laugh.
“That might be the first thing we’ve agreed on.”
For reasons Rachel could not explain, she laughed too.
One short breath of laughter.
It disappeared immediately.
Daniel looked offended by it.
That made it almost funny again.
Then Eli appeared at the top of the stairs holding his headphones.
“I can still hear you.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Of course he could.
The living room had twenty-foot ceilings and hard floors. Every argument traveled.
She went upstairs.
Eli waited near the railing.
“I thought you were watching the dragon movie.”
“It didn’t load.”
“Did you try the other app?”
“I forgot the password.”
Rachel crouched.
His eyes looked too serious.
She put both hands on his shoulders.
“You are not responsible for anything happening downstairs.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to listen.”
“I wasn’t listening.”
She waited.
He looked at the floor.
“Is Dad having a baby with the lady?”
There are questions adults spend months avoiding that children locate in seconds.
Rachel’s throat tightened.
“I don’t know.”
“Her tummy looks like when Aunt Claire had Maddie.”
“Yes.”
May you like
“Is she his girlfriend?”
Rachel glanced toward the staircase.
