Chương 6
“No,” she said. “Park.”
Michael opened the front door before they reached it.
He had changed into jeans and a dark sweater. His face was freshly shaved. The effort made Catherine angry.
“I thought you were going to your mother’s,” she said.
“I wanted to talk to you first.”
“I’m here for clothes and the baby’s things.”
“We can talk while Leah packs.”
Leah laughed once.
Ben lifted the infant carrier from the car. Michael’s attention went instantly to Eleanor.
“Can I hold her?”
“No,” Catherine said.
His face tightened. “You can’t keep saying no forever.”
“She is less than one day old.”
“I’m her father.”
“You weren’t available for the introduction.”
Ben moved between them without appearing to. He was not tall or imposing. He simply carried the car seat inside and asked where Catherine wanted it placed.
“The living room,” she said.
Michael followed.
The house smelled faintly of coffee and the cedar candle Michael burned when clients visited. A wineglass sat in the kitchen sink. Catherine looked at it.
“I had one glass,” he said.
“I didn’t ask.”
“You looked.”
She walked past him.
The nursery door was open. Pale green walls, white curtains, and a hand-painted wooden mobile waited above the crib. Catherine had folded every blanket in the dresser twice during the final month of pregnancy. Michael had assembled the crib but left one screw on the windowsill. He claimed it was extra.
The screw was still there.
Catherine sat in the upholstered chair by the window because her legs had begun to tremble.
Leah opened drawers and filled a suitcase.
Michael remained in the doorway.
“It was one time,” he said.
Leah did not turn around. “You already used that line.”
“I’m speaking to my wife.”
“She has a name.”
Catherine looked at Michael. “When in January?”
He rubbed his thumb over the edge of his wedding ring.
“The night of the winter launch.”
“You told me you stayed at the office.”
“I did. Until later.”
“With Amber.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Her apartment.”
The directness surprised her.
“Why?”
Michael looked toward Leah.
Catherine said, “She stays.”
He leaned against the doorframe, then seemed to think better of looking casual and stood straight again.
“We had been working for weeks. There was pressure. We were drinking.”
“You hate white wine, and that’s all Amber keeps in the office.”
His expression flickered.
“It wasn’t about the wine.”
“No. Apparently not.”
“I felt like I couldn’t do anything right with you.”
Leah stopped folding.
Catherine waited.
Michael continued because silence had always made him fill the space.
“Every time I came home, you were angry. Or crying. Or asking where I’d been. I was carrying the entire Carson negotiation, and you treated every late night like an attack on you.”
“I was pregnant.”
“I know.”
“You said we wanted this.”
“We did.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I was overwhelmed.”
Catherine looked down at her wedding ring. Swelling had made it tight around her finger.
“And Amber made you feel less overwhelmed.”
“She listened.”
Leah turned. “I’m going downstairs before I commit a felony.”
She left with the suitcase half full.
Michael stepped into the room.
Catherine did not ask him to leave. She wanted to see what he did when no one else stood between them.
He crouched in front of her, careful not to touch her knees.
“I ended it immediately.”
“She was with you last night.”
“For work.”
“At a hotel.”
“There were six people in that suite until one thirty.”
“And after?”
“Two investors stayed. Amber stayed. I stayed.”
“Why did she have your phone?”
“I was speaking to Carson from the hotel line. She was monitoring messages because everyone needed me.”
“Everyone except me.”
Michael looked away.
Catherine felt something inside her settle. It was not forgiveness or even clarity. It was the end of hoping he possessed an explanation large enough to contain the damage.
“Did you tell her to answer me?”
“I said to handle anything that wasn’t urgent.”
“I was in labor.”
“I didn’t know they were inducing you that early.”
“I told you.”
“I was distracted.”
“You read the message.”
“I glanced at it.”
“At three oh six I wrote that I was scared.”
Michael closed his eyes.
The stained-glass window above the stairs cast a small red shape across the nursery floor.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Catherine waited for the rest.
It came.
“But I didn’t hear what Amber sent. I would never have allowed that.”
“You allowed her to decide whether my labor was urgent.”
“That was a mistake.”
“No. A mistake is bringing home the wrong milk.”
“Catherine.”
“You left me alone to have our daughter because a business call mattered more. You gave another woman authority over whether I could reach you. You slept with her while I was pregnant. Then you stood outside the hospital and said I embarrassed you.”
“I was angry.”
“You’re still angry.”
“I’m terrified.”
The honesty caught her.
Michael sat on the nursery rug instead of crouching. He rubbed both hands over his face.
“I’m terrified you’re going to take her away.”
Catherine looked at him.
“I haven’t held her,” he said. “I haven’t even seen her eyes.”
“She barely opens them.”
“I don’t know whether she looks like me.”
“She has dark hair.”
“So do you.”
“Exactly.”
He let out a breath that might have been a laugh under different circumstances.
For a few seconds, they sat in the room they had prepared together. The mobile turned slightly in the heat from the vent. One of its painted birds tapped another with a dry wooden sound.
Michael said, “Tell me what to do.”
Catherine had wanted that sentence for years.
May you like
She had wanted it when he postponed counseling because of work, when he dismissed her concerns about Amber, when he moved money between accounts without telling her, when he promised he would reduce travel after the baby and then booked three June trips.
Now the sentence felt like another task placed in her lap.
