Chapter 4: The Things He Never Said Out Loud
Claire made Ryan a sandwich.
Peanut butter and strawberry jam.
She didn't ask what he wanted.
She just made it and set it in front of him at the kitchen table, and he ate it in six bites without looking up.
Lily sat across from him, her small bandage neat against her hairline, watching him the way five-year-olds watch things they haven't decided about yet.
"You hjt me," Lily said.
Ryan stopped chewing.
"I know," he said.
"It hurt."
"I know." He put the sandwich down.
"I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to hjt you.
I was trying to throw it at the door.
To make someone come out."
Lily considered this.
"You should have just knocked."
"I knocked three times," Ryan said.
"Nobody came."
Lily seemed to accept that.
She picked up her cup of juice and drank from it, still watching him.
Claire stood at the counter and listened.
Daniel was in the living room.
She could hear him on the phone, his voice low and controlled, the way it got when he was managing something he didn't want her to hear.
She walked to the kitchen doorway.
"Who are you calling?" she asked.
He looked up.
"Sandra's doctor.
I want to know her condition."
"You have her doctor's number."
It wasn't a question.
He understood that.
"I've been in contact," he said.
"On and off.
For the last two weeks."
"So you knew she was in the hospital."
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
"Claire—"
"You knew for two weeks," she said, "that this boy's mother was in a hospital, and you said nothing to me.
You came home every night and sat at that table and said nothing."
Daniel stood up.
"I was trying to figure out how to—"
"To what?
To keep hiding it?
Because that's what you were doing, Daniel.
You weren't figuring anything out.
You were just waiting for it to go away."
"That's not fair."
"Which part isn't fair?" She kept her voice low.
The children were ten feet away.
"The part where you had a son for ten years and never told me?
Or the part where you let me believe we were building something honest?"
He didn't answer.
"How did you meet her?" Claire asked.
"We were together before I met you.
It ended.
I thought it was finished."
"But it wasn't."
He looked at the floor.
"She called me.
About two years into our marriage.
She told me she was pregnant.
That Ryan was mine."
Claire's hand found the doorframe.
"Two years into our marriage," she said slowly.
"Lily wasn't even born yet."
"No."
"And you chose to say nothing."
"I chose to protect what we had."
The words hit the air and just stayed there.
"You chose to protect yourself," Claire said.
"Don't dress it up."
She went back into the kitchen.
She sat down at the table between Ryan and Lily.
She folded her hands on the tabletop and looked at nothing in particular until her breathing steadied.
Ryan was watching her.
"Are you going to make him leave?" the boy asked.
Claire looked at him.
"I don't know yet," she said honestly.
Ryan nodded slowly, like that was a fair answer.
Like he had learned not to expect better ones.
"My mom always said he was a good man," Ryan said.
"She said he just got scared."
Claire said nothing.
"I used to think that meant he'd come back," Ryan continued.
"When I was little.
I used to think he just needed more time to stop being scared." He picked up the second half of his sandwich.
"I don't think that anymore."
Claire looked at this boy.
Ten years old.
Already carrying something no child should have to carry.
Already past the age of waiting for someone to come back.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
She reached for it.
The message was from a number she didn't recognize.
*Please don't punish Ryan for what Daniel did.
He doesn't know the whole story.
Neither do you.
— Sandra*
May you like
Claire read it twice.
Then she looked up at the doorway where Daniel was still standing, watching her, and she thought: *neither do I.*
