Chapter 6: The Other Side of the Secret
She answered on the third ring.
"Hello?"
Her voice was careful.
Not unfriendly, but guarded in the way of someone who has learned to be.
"My name is Claire Ashworth," I said.
"I'm Julian's wife.
I'm not calling to threaten you.
I'm not calling to argue.
I just need to understand some things, and I think you might be the only person who can tell me the truth."
A long silence.
"How did you get this number?" she said.
"Eleanor gave it to me.
Before she died."
Another silence, longer this time.
"She died?" Renata said.
"Two days ago."
I heard her exhale slowly.
"I'm sorry.
She was — she was kind to me.
More than she had any reason to be."
That stopped me.
"You knew Eleanor?"
"She contacted me about four years ago.
She had figured out who I was.
I expected her to be angry." A pause.
"She wasn't.
She asked me about Marco.
She asked if he was healthy, if he was in school, if he was taken care of.
She sent him a birthday card every year after that.
She never told Julian."
I sat down on the bottom stair.
"Did Julian know she had contacted you?"
"No," Renata said.
"And I didn't tell him.
I had stopped trusting Julian a long time before that."
"When did it end?" I said.
"Between you and him."
"When Marco was two," she said.
"Julian told me he was going to leave his wife.
He said it for two years.
Then one day he stopped saying it, and I understood what that meant.
I told him I didn't want him in our lives anymore.
I told him the only thing I wanted was financial support for Marco, and if he provided that, I would never contact his wife." She paused.
"I kept my word.
I never contacted you."
"I know," I said.
"This is me contacting you."
"What do you want, Claire?"
"I want to know if Marco knows who his father is."
The pause this time was the longest yet.
"He knows he has a father who chose not to be present," Renata said carefully.
"He doesn't know Julian's name.
I made that choice to protect him.
A father who doesn't want to be a father is worse than no father at all."
"That was the right choice," I said.
"Are you divorcing him?"
"Yes."
"Good," she said.
Simply.
Without satisfaction or cruelty.
Just a single word that carried the weight of a long, clear assessment.
"There's something you should know," I said.
"Julian's mother left documentation of the financial transfers.
Bank records going back years.
When my attorney reviews them as part of the divorce proceedings, those records will show the payments to you.
Julian will likely try to use that against you somehow.
I don't know how yet, but I want you to be prepared."
"He can try," Renata said.
"I have my own records.
Every transfer, every date, every message.
I kept everything."
"Good," I said.
Now it was my turn to use that word the same way she had.
We were quiet for a moment.
"Eleanor really sent him birthday cards?" I said.
"Every year.
She signed them 'A friend of your grandmother.' He keeps them in a shoebox under his bed." Her voice softened for the first time.
"He's a good boy, Claire.
He didn't ask for any of this."
"No," I said.
"He didn't."
I thanked her.
She said she was sorry for what I was going through.
I told her I was sorry for what she had been through too.
We hung up, and I sat on the bottom stair for a while, holding the phone in both hands.
Outside, a car passed.
A dog barked somewhere down the street.
The ordinary world continuing in its ordinary way.
May you like
I thought about a boy who kept birthday cards from a stranger in a shoebox under his bed.
Then I got up, went to the kitchen, and called my attorney.
