Chương 2
He faced his family.
“What happened here?”
Evelyn folded her arms. “Nothing happened.”
Claire looked at the black suitcase.
Daniel saw her looking.
He turned to Kyle. “Why was her bag downstairs?”
Kyle rubbed his palms against his charcoal T-shirt. “Mom told me to bring it down.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You carried my pregnant wife’s suitcase down two flights of stairs because Mom told you, and you don’t know why?”
Kyle’s face reddened. “I didn’t ask.”
“That seems to be your specialty.”
“Daniel,” Claire said.
He looked at her immediately.
She had meant to calm him.
What came out instead was, “They were making me leave.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Daniel’s hand tightened around hers.
“Today?”
Claire nodded.
“Why?”
Evelyn answered for her.
“She has been disrespectful since the day you left.”
Claire looked at her.
There it was.
Not remorse.
Not even embarrassment.
A complaint.
Daniel stared at his mother for a long time. “Mom.”
“You have no idea what she’s like when you’re gone.”
Claire felt something inside her collapse.
Not because Evelyn said it.
Because Evelyn said it confidently.
Richard rose from the floor with difficulty, using the suitcase handle for balance. “Everyone is emotional. Let’s not make decisions we regret.”
Daniel turned to Claire. “Do you have your phone?”
She hesitated.
That was enough.
His eyes sharpened.
“Claire.”
“It’s upstairs.”
“Why?”
She glanced at Evelyn.
Daniel followed the glance.
Evelyn’s voice became defensive. “Her phone was becoming a problem.”
Daniel did not move.
Kyle looked at the floor.
Richard said, “She was constantly threatening to call you over every disagreement.”
“That’s not true,” Claire said.
“You said you would.”
“Once.”
“You said it more than once.”
“Because she locked the car keys in her desk.”
Daniel’s gaze shifted to his mother.
Evelyn lifted her chin. “She wasn’t supposed to be driving.”
“My doctor said I could drive.”
“You were tired.”
“I was twenty-eight weeks pregnant, not unconscious.”
“You nearly backed into the fountain.”
Claire stared at her.
“That never happened.”
Evelyn’s lips thinned.
Daniel raised one hand.
Everybody stopped.
He spoke to Claire.
“Where is your phone?”
“In the drawer beside our bed.”
“Can you get it?”
Claire looked toward the staircase.
Her body reacted before her mind did.
Daniel noticed.
His expression softened for the first time.
“I’ll come with you.”
Evelyn stepped toward them.
Daniel turned.
“Don’t.”
His mother stopped.
He waited until she moved back.
Then he put his hand lightly against Claire’s shoulder blade and walked upstairs with her.
Halfway up, Claire realized she was shaking.
She hated that.
She gripped the railing.
Daniel stopped beside her.
“Are you hurt?”
“My face.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“The baby?”
“He moved after she hit me.”
Daniel looked down at her belly.
As if on cue, there was a small pressure beneath Claire’s ribs.
She took his hand and placed it there.
They waited.
The baby kicked.
Daniel closed his eyes.
His thumb moved once against the patterned fabric of her dress.
When he opened his eyes, there were tears in them.
He blinked them away before they fell.
Claire whispered, “I’m sorry.”
His head snapped up.
“For what?”
She could not answer.
From downstairs came the muffled sound of Richard speaking urgently to Evelyn.
Daniel listened.
Then he looked back at Claire.
“How long?”
She swallowed.
“Daniel.”
“How long has this been happening?”
“They weren’t always like this.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She started climbing again.
He followed.
Their bedroom door was open.
Claire had left it closed.
On the bed were clothes she had not packed: maternity jeans, two sweaters, Daniel’s old gray Army T-shirt she slept in, the blue robe her sister had mailed for Christmas.
Daniel stopped in the doorway.
“Did they do this?”
Claire nodded.
He walked to the nightstand.
The drawer was open.
Her phone was inside, powered off.
Daniel picked it up and held the side button.
While it restarted, his eyes moved around the room.
The closet door stood open.
Two empty hangers lay on the floor.
A small wooden box on the dresser was missing its lid.
Daniel looked at Claire.
She knew what he was thinking.
“That was where the clinic paperwork was.”
He stared at the box.
“They went through that?”
“I don’t know when.”
“Dad said he saw it.”
“I know.”
“Did you show him?”
“No.”
Daniel sat on the edge of the bed.
It was the first time since entering the house that he looked tired.
Not angry.
Not commanding.
Just tired.
Claire sat beside him with space between them.
His phone buzzed inside his uniform jacket.
He ignored it.
Her own phone came alive.
Thirty-one missed notifications appeared.
Daniel saw them.
“Why was it off?”
Claire picked at a loose thread on the cardigan sleeve.
“Your mother said I was making myself sick reading things online.”
“What things?”
“Nothing. News. Pregnancy forums. Messages.”
“She took it?”
Claire nodded.
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Has she done that before?”
“No.”
That answer was technically true.
Daniel looked at her.
Claire stared at her hands.
“She’s hidden it before.”
He said nothing.
“Twice.”
Still nothing.
“She said she was trying to get me to stop obsessing.”
Daniel leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
He rubbed both hands over his face.
Claire recognized that gesture.
He did it when the problem in front of him did not fit the solution he wanted.
On deployment, he had once called her after fourteen hours awake and spent ten minutes complaining about a broken printer because he could not talk about anything that actually mattered.
Now he stared at the floor.
“I called you every chance I got.”
“I know.”
“You said you were fine.”
“I was trying to be.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Claire’s cheek throbbed.
She looked toward the window.
May you like
Across the lawn, sprinklers turned in slow arcs. Someone two houses down was using a leaf blower. The sound came and went in irritating bursts.
“I thought it would stop.”
