Chapter 2
Daniel reached for me.
I stepped back.
“Answer me.”
“I don’t know if she’s pregnant,” he said.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Lena remained by the restaurant door. I could see how badly she wanted to leave us alone. I wanted her there. At least one person was willing to say what she had heard.
Daniel looked at the pavement.
“Megan and I slept together.”
The music inside the restaurant kept playing.
I had expected some other explanation right up until the words left his mouth. A cruel joke. A message I misunderstood. Anything.
“How long?” I asked.
“One night.”
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
Six weeks. I counted backward without meaning to.
Daniel and I had gone to a fertility appointment that morning. That evening, I cried in our kitchen because another treatment cycle had failed. He held me until I fell asleep on the sofa.
He must have gone to Megan afterward.
“Where?”
“At her studio.”
“You went there after I fell asleep?”
“Yes.”
Lena turned away, giving me what privacy she could.
Megan came out of the restaurant with Ryan behind her.
She stopped when she saw Daniel’s face.
“He told you,” she said.
I looked at her.
“You knew we were trying to have a child.”
“Claire—”
“You sat beside me while I cried about it.”
“It wasn’t planned.”
“You planned to make him tell me tonight.”
“I was tired of being a secret.”
Ryan went still.
“A secret?” he asked.
Megan faced him.
“I was going to tell you too.”
He gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“You picked Lena’s birthday dinner?”
“I didn’t pick this. Daniel kept saying he needed more time.”
Daniel said, “You promised we’d talk privately.”
“After you ignored my calls all week?”
I pressed my palms together. I wanted them both to stop speaking as if their scheduling problem were the worst part.
“Did you know she might be pregnant?” I asked Daniel.
“She told me yesterday her period was late. She hasn’t taken a test.”
Megan folded her arms.
“I wanted us to talk before I did.”
“Us?” Ryan repeated.
She looked at him but said nothing.
I felt the anger rise at last.
“Take the test,” I told her. “Speak to a doctor. Work out the truth with the people involved. I’m going home.”
Daniel moved toward me.
“Claire, I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
“We should talk.”
“We will. I can’t do it while she’s standing here.”
I called a car. Lena waited beside me until it arrived. She did not say the familiar things people say when they cannot bear silence. She only held my coat when I struggled to put it on.
At home, I walked into the room we had begun clearing for a nursery.
There was no crib. Only boxes of my mother’s books and a pale yellow paint sample taped to the wall. Daniel had held the sample beside the window and asked if it looked warm enough.
I pulled it off.
Then I sat on the floor and called my sister, Tasha.
“Can you come over?” I asked.
“What happened?”
“Daniel slept with Megan.”
She was quiet for one breath.
“I’m on my way.”
When she arrived, I told her everything. She let me finish before she asked what I needed.
“I need you to stay tonight.”
“I will.”
My phone filled with messages.
Daniel apologized and asked if I was safe. Megan wrote that I should hear her side. Ryan sent one message: I’m sorry. I had no idea.
I answered only Daniel.
I’m home with Tasha. Do not come tonight.
He replied: I won’t. I’m sorry.
Tasha made tea I could not drink. Near midnight, she took the phone from my hand and put it on the table.
“You can look again in the morning,” she said.
I thought I would never sleep.
I did, for a little while. When I woke, I saw the empty side of our bed and remembered everything at once.
At eight, Ryan called.
“I’m not asking you to comfort me,” he said. “I need to tell you something Megan admitted this morning.”
I sat up.
“What?”
“She took a test.”
May you like
I gripped the blanket.
“She says it’s positive,” Ryan said. “And she’s telling Daniel the baby is his.”
