“I’m not going back to her.”
“You are going somewhere. I can’t have you here when whoever is watching decides I’ve become interesting again.”
“Come with me somewhere safer.”
“No.”
“The boys need—”
“The boys need calm,” she interrupted. “They need clean bottles and sleep. They need a mother who doesn’t make decisions because a man showed up with regret in his eyes.”
I accepted that because I had to.
“What can I do tonight?” I asked.
She seemed surprised by the question.
“Nothing dramatic,” she said.
“I can manage that.”
A faint, unwilling smile touched her mouth and vanished.
“Bring diapers,” she said. “Size two. Hypoallergenic wipes. Formula, the kind in the gold can, but only if the seal is intact. No cash tossed in the dirt. No security men. No lawyers tonight. Leave it at the office with Mr. Hanley.”
I nodded. “Done.”
“And Rowan?”
“Yes?”
“If you confront Claire before we know where Lily is, you could scare the only people who know the truth into silence.”
I had already thought of that, but hearing Lily’s name made it real.
“I won’t confront her.”
Megan shifted the babies again. “You’ll have to lie convincingly.”
I almost smiled. “Apparently everyone else in my life has had practice.”
She did not smile back.
“I’m going inside,” she said.
I stepped aside.
At the door, she paused without turning. “There’s a clinic in Columbia. Tomorrow at nine. The boys have a checkup. Don’t come inside. Park across the street. If I decide you can meet the doctor, I’ll wave.”
It was not forgiveness.
It was a door opened the width of a breath.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
She entered the room and shut the door.
I stood in the parking lot long after the lock clicked.
Then I drove to the nearest twenty-four-hour store and bought every item she had listed. I spent fifteen minutes in the baby aisle staring at different bottle nipples like a man trying to decode a foreign language. A young cashier with purple glasses watched me pile diapers, wipes, formula, pacifiers, tiny blankets, and a thermometer onto the counter.
“First-time dad?” she asked kindly.
The question struck so deep I could only nod.
“Yeah,” I said. “Very first time.”
At home, Claire was waiting.
The house looked unchanged from the outside, all stone, glass, and careful lighting. Inside, flowers for the wedding sat in sample arrangements across the foyer table. White roses. Pale green eucalyptus. Claire had chosen them because, she said, they looked pure.
She stood at the foot of the staircase in a silk robe, hair loose, one hand resting on the banister.
“There you are,” she said. “Your mother has been calling me all evening. We were worried.”
The word we landed heavily.
“I needed air,” I said.
Her gaze dropped to the shopping bags in my hands.
For a fraction of a second, something sharp crossed her face.
Then it disappeared.
“What is all that?”
“Donations,” I said, setting the bags down. “For a church pantry.”
“How noble.”
I looked at her then. Really looked.
Claire Whitmore had always been beautiful in a way that made rooms rearrange themselves around her. Golden-brown hair, effortless clothes, a voice that could turn from velvet to steel without warning. After my divorce, she had known exactly when to comfort me and when to let silence do the work. She had been patient with my bitterness. She had called Megan manipulative when I needed someone else to say it first. She had made herself necessary.
Now, watching her smile, I wondered how much of her I had ever truly met.
“You were cruel today,” I said.
She rolled her eyes lightly. “To Megan? Please. She wanted you to feel sorry for her. That’s what women like her do.”
“Women like her.”
“Don’t start.” Claire came toward me and placed a hand on my chest. “You saw two babies and got emotional. That doesn’t erase what she did.”
“What did she do?”
Claire blinked once. “Are you serious?”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“She cheated. She stole. She humiliated you.”
The words came easily. Too easily. Memorized lines in a play she had performed for a year.
“And you believe that?” I asked.
Her hand stilled. “Why wouldn’t I?”
I covered her hand with mine and gently moved it away. “I’m tired.”
Something changed in her eyes then—not fear exactly, but calculation waking from sleep.
“Rowan,” she said softly. “You’re letting guilt confuse you.”
