Chương 2
“No,” Claire said. “But nobody’s in danger.”
Martin glanced at Ethan, then at the phone in Claire’s hand.
Ethan said, “We’re fine.”
Martin did not appear convinced.
The mountain did not care. A gust slammed snow against the western wall. The lights blinked once.
Martin looked toward the control panel.
“The gondola is shut down until the crosswind drops. Maintenance road’s not safe either. Could be an hour. Could be longer.”
Claire looked at Margaret.
For the first time in eight years, being trapped with Margaret Bennett felt useful.
“Good.”
Ethan whispered a curse.
Claire walked to the other end of the station and sat on a steel bench. She put Ethan’s phone on her thigh.
Her first impulse was to call someone.
Her second was to recognize that she did not know whom.
Daniel had been the person she called when she was frightened.
That fact felt obscene now.
Her husband had been dead nine months. Pancreatic cancer had reduced him with an efficiency that made everyone else’s feelings seem self-indulgent. At the end, he had become a warm hand under a blanket, dry lips, a voice too weak to cross a room. Claire had spent his last two weeks measuring time by medication alarms and spoonfuls of ice.
She had forgiven him things simply because he was dying.
His impatience.
His infidelities that he swore were over before they married.
The way he dismissed questions about money.
His habit of deciding what Claire could handle before she had been asked.
She had not known she was forgiving this.
She opened the camera on Ethan’s phone and photographed the message thread with her own phone. Then she photographed the DNA report.
Ethan watched.
“Please don’t send those to anyone yet.”
“Why?”
“There are things you don’t understand.”
“Then start making me understand them.”
Margaret spoke without looking up.
“Ethan.”
He turned.
She folded the paternity report carefully along its original crease.
“Tell her.”
His jaw moved.
“Mom.”
“Tell her.”
“What exactly would you like me to tell her?”
There it was.
Not remorse.
Not yet.
Self-protection.
Claire recognized it because Daniel had sounded the same whenever a problem had grown larger than the explanation prepared for it.
Margaret’s gaze sharpened. “Do not do that.”
Ethan put both hands in his coat pockets.
He looked at Claire, then at the windows.
“Your baby had complications.”
Claire felt the blood leave her face.
“Noah?”
“Your baby.”
She stood.
“What does that mean?”
“The baby you delivered.”
The words landed separately.
Claire took two steps toward him.
“His name is Noah.”
Ethan looked down.
Margaret said, “Ethan, stop being a coward.”
He pulled his hands from his pockets.
“At the hospital, after your C-section, there was an incident.”
“What incident?”
“A medication error. At least that’s what Daniel was told.”
Claire’s fingernails pressed into her palms.
She remembered Noah being taken to the nursery because his temperature had fallen. She remembered asking for him after midnight. She remembered Margaret telling her he was being monitored and she should sleep.
“What happened to him?”
Ethan’s eyes lifted to hers.
He could not hold the look.
“He died.”
Claire’s body reacted before her mind did.
She sat down because her knees stopped supporting her.
No crying came.
She wished it would.
Crying had rules. Crying had a beginning and an ending. This was only a vast blankness opening behind her ribs.
She heard Margaret say her name.
Claire raised one finger.
Margaret stopped.
Across the station, the little boy in the green jacket tore the corner off his granola-bar wrapper and dropped it. His father made him pick it up.
Such a small thing.
Claire watched the boy bend to the floor.
Noah hated granola bars with almonds. He ate the chocolate around them and left the nuts in damp little piles on his plate. Daniel used to tell him that defeated the purpose.
She looked at Ethan.
“If my son died, who came home with me?”
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck.
“Another newborn was on the same floor.”
Margaret said quietly, “His mother had emergency surgery that night.”
Claire turned to her.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“You held Noah before I did.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“You put him in my arms.”
“Yes.”
Claire stood so suddenly the bench legs gave a metallic snap against their anchors.
“Whose baby?”
“We didn’t know then.”
“That’s a lie.”
Margaret flinched.
It was so small Claire might once have missed it.
Now she saw everything.
“You knew enough to switch wristbands.”
Margaret looked at Ethan.
Ethan shook his head. “Mom.”
“You knew enough to write that message.”
Silence.
Claire lifted his phone.
“You knew enough to spend seven years being afraid I’d find out.”
Margaret got to her feet.
She was shorter than Claire. Claire had never noticed that before.
“His mother’s name was Rebecca Shaw.”
Claire repeated it.
Not because she meant to.
“Rebecca Shaw.”
“She was twenty-six. She had severe internal bleeding after delivery. She was transferred to another unit and sedated. The father wasn’t there.”
“And you took her baby.”
Margaret’s mouth tightened.
“Daniel took her baby.”
Ethan looked sharply at his mother.
Claire did too.
Margaret continued.
“He made the decision.”
“You helped.”
“Yes.”
“Ethan helped.”
Margaret did not answer.
Ethan did.
“Yes.”
The wind hit the building again.
Claire walked toward the glass and pressed the heel of her hand against her mouth.
Snow moved beyond the wall in white sheets, swallowing the dark mountain and giving it back.
Daniel had been fifty-seven when Noah was born. He had already built three resorts, buried a first wife, survived one securities investigation, and convinced himself that inconvenience was a form of injustice.
Claire had loved him.
That remained true.
May you like
The fact embarrassed her now.
Not because he had been older. Everyone else had done enough talking about that. Her mother had cried when Claire told her they were engaged. Friends had become careful and polite. Strangers online, after wedding photographs appeared in a business magazine, had called Claire an employee with a ring.
