Chapter 6: What He Said When He Had No More Doors
He talked for forty minutes.
The story he told was careful.
Measured.
A version of events in which he was confused, overwhelmed, and had made a mistake — singular, contained, already over.
Cara Finch, he said, was someone he had met at a work conference.
It had been a brief connection.
It was finished.
It had meant nothing.
He had ended it when I told him I was pregnant.
"When I found out about Leo," he said, "I ended it.
That same week.
I swear to you."
"The calls continued for eleven months after that," I said.
A pause.
"She had a hard time letting go."
"Sixty-one outgoing calls from your number," I said.
"You called her sixty-one times."
The careful version of the story developed a crack.
"Some of those were to tell her to stop," he said.
"For eleven months."
"Phoebe—"
"Were you with her the night I went into labor?"
He went very still.
"Were you at your mother's birthday dinner, or were you with Cara Finch?"
"I was at Mom's," he said.
"I swear."
"Then why did she call you three times that night?"
"I don't know.
I didn't answer."
"You answered the third call," I said.
"At 11:48 p.m.
Duration: twenty-two minutes.
While I was in active labor.
While my father was holding my hand."
The crack became a fracture.
He stood up.
He walked to the window.
He stood with his back to me and his hands in his pockets, and I watched his shoulders and waited.
"I don't know what you want me to say," he said finally.
"I want you to say the true thing."
A long silence.
"I cared about her," he said.
"For a while.
I thought — I don't know what I thought.
It was stupid.
It's over."
"Is it?"
He turned around.
"Yes."
"Then why did she call you on Monday and say 'she knows everything'?"
His face went still in a way that was different from before.
Not calculating.
Caught.
"She panicked," he said.
"She heard I had a baby.
She was worried you'd found out and would—"
"Would what?"
He pressed his mouth shut.
"Rowan.
Would what?"
"She was worried you'd go after her," he said.
"Professionally.
She thought — she knows what you do.
She was scared."
I looked at him.
"She knows what I do," I said slowly.
"How does she know what I do?"
He said nothing.
"You told her about me," I said.
"You discussed me with her.
My work.
My capabilities.
What else did you tell her?"
"Nothing.
Just—"
"Did you tell her about my father?"
The silence that followed was its own answer.
I stood up.
I was very calm.
That was the thing about training — it didn't make you feel less.
It made you feel precisely, without spilling over.
"I need you to leave tonight," I said.
"Phoebe—"
"Not permanently.
Not yet.
But tonight, I need you to go to your mother's house or your brother's or a hotel, and I need you to give me space to think."
"You can't ask me to leave my own—"
"I just gave birth four days ago," I said.
"To your son.
Alone.
With my father holding my hand.
And tonight I have learned that you spent twenty-two minutes on the phone with another woman while that was happening." I picked up my tea cup and set it in the sink.
"I am asking you to leave.
I am not shouting.
I am not threatening.
I am asking."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he picked up his keys from the counter.
At the door, he stopped.
"I do love you," he said.
"I need you to know that."
"I know you believe that," I said.
The door closed.
I stood in the kitchen until I heard his car start.
Until the sound of it faded down the street.
Then I went to the nursery, sat in the chair beside Leo's bassinet, and opened my laptop.
I had more work to do.
Because something he had said was still turning in my mind — the way he had stopped himself mid-sentence.
*She was worried you'd go after her.
Professionally.*
Cara Finch was a property manager.
She handled rentals.
I typed her name into the business registry search I used for work.
What came back made me sit up straight.
Cara Finch was listed as a secondary director on a property holding company registered eighteen months ago.
May you like
The primary director was listed as Rowan Hale.
My husband.
