Chapter 4
I made Emma mac and cheese for dinner that night.
Her favorite.
She ate two bowls, chattering about her day at school, about how her best friend had gotten a new puppy, about how she wanted to learn to ride her bike without training wheels.
I listened, nodding, smiling, but I didn’t hear a word of it.
All I could think about was Michael.
About Lila.
About Diane’s smug face across the dinner table.
Emma went to bed at 8:30.
I sat down at the kitchen island, a glass of wine in front of me that I didn’t drink, and waited.
Michael came home at 10:17.
I counted the minutes.
He walked in the back door, quiet, like he thought I was asleep.
He stopped when he saw me sitting there.
“Claire,” he said.
I nodded at the chair across from me.
“Sit.”
He sat.
He looked tired. Older.
I reached into my purse and pulled out the gray cashmere sweater. I’d picked it up off the boutique floor after Lila dropped it.
I tossed it onto the table between us.
“I saw Lila today,” I said.
Michael closed his eyes.
“Claire—”
“She told me everything,” I said. “How it started. How Diane pushed her. How long it’s been going on. Fourteen months, Michael. Fourteen months of lying to my face. Fourteen months of coming home to me, to our daughter, after being with my sister.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a hand.
“I’m not done,” I said. “I want the whole truth now. No more lies. No more half-truths. Everything. Or I walk out that door with Emma, and you never see either of us again. Do you understand?”
He nodded, fast.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Everything.”
He took a deep breath.
“It did start when you were in the hospital,” he said. “Lila came over, she was upset about her breakup, I was stressed about you being in surgery, and we drank too much. It happened once, and I felt like shit. I told her it could never happen again. But then Mom found out. She said if I didn’t keep seeing Lila, she’d tell you I cheated. She said she’d make sure you took Emma and left me, that I’d never see my daughter again.”
I stared at him.
“And you believed her?” I said.
“Claire, my mom controls the family business,” he said. “Everything I have is tied up in it. If she cuts me off, I have nothing. I can’t take care of you and Emma with nothing. I thought if I just went along with it for a little while, I could figure out a way out. But then Lila got… attached. And Mom kept pushing. And it got out of control.”
“Got out of control?” I said, my voice rising. “You let it get out of control. You’re not a child, Michael. You could’ve told me the truth at any time. You could’ve gone to your dad, you could’ve gone to the police, you could’ve done anything but keep lying to me for over a year.”
“I know,” he said, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I know I was weak. I was scared. I didn’t want to lose everything.”
“Is there anything else?” I said. “Anything else you haven’t told me?”
He hesitated.
Just for a second.
But I saw it.
“Michael,” I said. “What else?”
He looked down at his hands.
“Lila’s pregnant,” he said.
The words hung in the air between us.
I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.
I leaned forward, gasping for air, like the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
“What?” I said, barely a whisper.
“She’s three months pregnant,” he said, not looking at me. “She found out two weeks ago. I was gonna tell you, I just… I didn’t know how. I didn’t want to hurt you more than I already had.”
“Is it yours?” I said.
He nodded, slow.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s mine.”
I stood up so fast my chair scraped against the floor.
I walked to the sink, my hands gripping the edge so tight my knuckles turned white.
A baby.
He’d gotten my sister pregnant.
While I was at home, taking care of our daughter, making his dinner, loving him, he’d been building another family behind my back.
Diane’s words came back to me.
Lila’s family. Lila’s the kind of woman who knows how to take care of a man.
She’d gotten him the son he’d always wanted.
I’d given him Emma, the light of my life, but it was never enough.
It would never be enough for Diane.
It would never be enough for any of them.
“Claire?” Michael said, standing up. He reached for my shoulder. “Say something. Please.”
I turned around and slapped him.
Hard.
Across the same cheek Diane had slapped me the night before.
His head snapped to the side.
He didn’t fight back.
He just stood there, his hand pressed to his face, staring at me.
“Get out,” I said.
“Claire—”
“Get out of my house,” I said, my voice shaking. “Now. Before I call the police and have you arrested for trespassing.”
“Please,” he said. “Don’t do this. I love you. I love Emma. We can fix this. We can go to counseling, we can—”
“There is no fixing this,” I said. “You broke us. You broke me. You broke our daughter’s heart before she even knows what’s happening. There is no coming back from this. Now get your things and get out. And don’t you dare come back until I say you can.”
He stood there for another minute, like he thought I’d change my mind.
Then he walked up the stairs.
I heard him open our closet, yanking clothes off hangers, shoving them into a duffel bag.
Ten minutes later, he walked back down.
He stopped in front of Emma’s bedroom door, his hand on the knob.
“Can I—” he started.
“No,” I said. “You don’t get to say goodbye to her like this. Not when you’re the reason everything’s falling apart. You’ll see her when I’m ready for you to see her. Not a minute before.”
He nodded.
He walked to the front door, then turned back to me.
“I’m sorry, Claire,” he said. “For everything.”
I didn’t answer.
He walked out.
The front door clicked shut behind him.
I stood there in the dark kitchen for a long time.
Then I heard Emma’s bedroom door open.
She walked down the stairs, her eyes half-closed, her rabbit under her arm.
“Mommy?” she said. “I heard the door. Where’d Daddy go?”
I knelt down and pulled her into my arms.
She was warm, and soft, and she smelled like her lavender shampoo.
She was the only good thing I had left.
“Daddy had to go away for a little while, baby,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “For work.”
“For how long?” she said, yawning.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “But it’s okay. We’re gonna be fine. Just you and me.”
Emma snuggled closer to me.
“I miss him already,” she mumbled into my shoulder.
I held her tighter, tears spilling down my face and into her hair.
“Me too, baby,” I whispered. “Me too.”
I carried her back up to bed, then went back downstairs and locked all the doors.
I turned off all the lights, and I sat on the couch in the dark, and I let myself cry.
For the first time since Diane slapped me, I let myself feel all of it.
The anger. The hurt. The betrayal.
The fear that I’d never be able to fix this for Emma.
May you like
That no matter what I did, she’d always be the little girl whose daddy left her for her aunt.
And I didn’t know how to make that okay.
