Chương 5
“Where?”
“Please don’t do this to yourself.”
The sentence was so familiar that it steadied her.
She leaned toward Lila. “Can we go?”
Michael reached for the wheelchair handle.
Daniel appeared from the corridor behind them.
He did not touch Michael. He simply said his name.
Michael’s hand dropped.
Ben’s SUV pulled beneath the awning. Leah opened the rear door while Lila helped secure Eleanor’s car seat.
Catherine stood with assistance. Pain caught low in her body, sharp enough to blur the edges of the lobby. She waited until it passed and climbed into the passenger seat.
Michael came to the window before Leah could close the door.
“I love you,” he said.
Catherine looked at the man she had married beneath a white arbor in her grandmother’s garden. He had cried during their vows, not theatrically but with visible embarrassment, wiping his face with the heel of his hand. For years, that memory had served as evidence whenever other evidence became uncomfortable.
“Go home,” she said.
“To an empty house?”
The question carried accusation before he could stop it.
Catherine turned her face toward the windshield.
Leah slammed the door.
Ben drove them to his house in Ravenswood, where the porch light was on and three pairs of children’s shoes lay in a row inside the door. The youngest boy, Noah, had left a note on the kitchen counter in purple marker.
WELCOME BABY COUSIN.
Underneath, he had drawn something that might have been a baby or a potato.
Catherine stood in the kitchen holding the paper while Leah carried Eleanor upstairs.
Ben opened the refrigerator.
“I made soup,” he said.
“It’s seven in the morning.”
“I started it last night.”
“You knew?”
“I knew there was labor. I didn’t know the rest.”
He took out a plastic container and held it as though soup might be the one available answer to betrayal.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to eat it now.”
“I know.”
“You can, though.”
“Ben.”
“Right.”
He put the container back.
The boys had been instructed to stay in their rooms, but footsteps creaked above the kitchen. Someone whispered, then someone else shushed too loudly.
Catherine looked toward the ceiling.
“They’re excited,” Ben said.
“I’m not ready.”
“They’ll wait.”
He went upstairs and spoke through the bedroom doors in a voice usually reserved for emergencies involving fire or broken glass.
Leah prepared the guest room with clean sheets and a bassinet borrowed from a neighbor. The room contained a wooden dresser, a faded rug, and framed photographs of the boys missing front teeth. A ceramic lamp shaped like a pineapple stood on the bedside table.
“I always hated that lamp,” Catherine said.
Leah plugged it in. “Ben’s mother gave it to us.”
“You still hate it?”
“Violently.”
“Why is it here?”
“Because marriage is compromise.”
They both went quiet.
Leah unplugged the lamp and carried it into the hallway.
Catherine slept for forty minutes.
She woke because her body expected Eleanor before the baby made a sound. For one disoriented second, she saw unfamiliar walls and believed she was still in the hospital. Then the ache in her abdomen, the pineapple-shaped absence on the table, and the soft stirring in the bassinet restored the morning.
Her phone showed six missed calls from Evelyn Harrison.
Catherine turned it off.
She fed Eleanor in the gray light coming through the blinds. Downstairs, one of the boys laughed, then stopped abruptly after being reminded to stay quiet. Pipes knocked inside the wall. A garbage truck groaned in the alley.
Normal life continued with offensive confidence.
At noon, Leah brought toast, scrambled eggs, and a legal pad.
“What’s that for?” Catherine asked.
“Things you need from the house.”
“I’m not making an inventory of my marriage.”
“You’re making an inventory of baby clothes.”
Catherine took the pen.
They wrote practical items first: diapers, wipes, nursing pillow, bassinet sheets, Catherine’s medication, loose clothes, toiletries, chargers, car-seat base, insurance cards.
Then documents: passports, birth certificates, marriage certificate, tax returns, property records, account statements, trust documents from Catherine’s grandmother, company agreements.
Leah tapped the pen against the page. “Do you have your own attorney?”
“We have an estate attorney.”
“That means Michael has an attorney.”
“He represents both of us.”
“That means Michael has an attorney.”
Catherine looked at Eleanor, asleep against her shoulder.
“I’m not filing for divorce today.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You’re making a list like I’m escaping.”
Leah leaned back. “You asked whether he was sleeping with Amber. He admitted it. He lied until you asked the exact right question. He missed the birth because he was in a hotel with her. He disabled the garage camera. I’m sorry if the word escaping feels dramatic.”
Catherine flinched.
Leah saw it immediately.
“Damn it,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
“No. I’m sorry.”
Catherine moved Eleanor higher against her chest. “Everyone thinks I’m dramatic.”
“I don’t.”
“Michael does.”
“Michael thinks any emotion he didn’t authorize is an inconvenience.”
“Dad thought Mom was dramatic.”
“Dad also thought ketchup was a vegetable.”
“That isn’t relevant.”
“Not everything has to be.”
Catherine put the legal pad beside her.
“I need an attorney.”
Leah nodded.
They went to the house that afternoon.
Ben drove. Leah sat beside Catherine in the back seat while Eleanor slept between them. The rain had stopped, leaving Chicago washed and colorless. Cyclists moved along Lincoln Avenue. A woman walked a white dog in a yellow raincoat. Outside a coffee shop, two men argued cheerfully over a parking meter.
Catherine watched every ordinary thing they passed because looking at ordinary things kept her from imagining the rooms ahead.
Michael’s car was in the driveway.
“He said he’d leave,” Catherine said.
“Did he?”
“No.”
May you like
Ben turned toward the next intersection. “We can come back.”
Catherine looked at the limestone facade of the house. She and Michael had bought it seven years earlier, before the company’s largest expansion. She had chosen the pale oak floors and insisted on keeping the old stained-glass window above the stairs. Michael had complained about the cost, then later told visitors it was his favorite feature.
