Chapter 8: What Richard Was Owed
They sat back down at the table — Richard, Nicole, Maya.
Nicole kept her hands on the table this time.
No cup.
No cardigan to pull closed.
Just her hands and the ring and whatever she'd decided on the walk back from the counter.
"Paul called me this morning," she said.
"Before I came home."
Richard was very still.
"He said he'd changed his mind about leaving Diane.
He said he wasn't going to do it.
He said—" She stopped briefly.
"He said it was better for everyone if things went back to normal."
"Back to normal," Richard repeated.
"Yes."
"He wanted you to absorb eight months and a pregnancy and just — go back to normal."
"Yes."
Richard breathed out slowly.
"And tonight he's texting you to meet him."
"Yes."
"So he told you it was over this morning and he wants to see you tonight."
"I think—" Nicole stopped.
She started again.
"I think he's panicking.
I think he didn't know Diane already had papers filed.
I think tonight's message is about making sure I don't tell her about the pregnancy."
Richard looked at the middle of the table.
"He wants you to handle it quietly."
"That's what I think, yes."
"So he walks away clean."
"Yes."
The word landed.
Richard picked up his cup and put it down without drinking.
He looked at Maya.
"You told her she needs to call Diane," he said.
"Yes."
He looked at Nicole.
"She's right."
Nicole nodded.
"Not about Diane's marriage," Richard said.
"That's gone.
The papers are filed.
But about what Paul's doing tonight — Diane needs to know that he's already trying to manage this." He paused.
"She needs to know what she's walking away from."
"I know," Nicole said.
"Then call her."
Nicole took out her phone.
She found Diane's number.
She pressed call and put the phone on the table on speaker.
Three rings.
Four.
"Nicole." Diane's voice, flat and tired.
"I need to tell you something about Paul," Nicole said.
"About this morning and about tonight."
A silence.
"Go ahead," Diane said.
Nicole told her.
All of it.
The call that morning, what Paul had said about going back to normal, the message asking to meet tonight.
She told it without softening it, without explaining why she hadn't said it sooner, without asking for anything in return.
When she finished, there was a long quiet on the line.
"He called you this morning," Diane said, "and told you he was staying.
Then tonight he texted you."
"Yes."
"He thinks you might tell me about the pregnancy."
"I think so."
Another silence.
Then: "Are you going to keep it?"
Nicole looked at Richard.
He was looking at the table.
"I don't know yet," Nicole said.
"All right," Diane said.
"Thank you for telling me." A pause.
"I'll pass this to my solicitor in the morning.
The timing matters." Another pause, shorter.
"Nicole."
"Yes."
"Don't meet him."
"I won't."
The line went quiet.
Maya watched her father.
He was looking at the speaker on the phone like it was a document he needed to read twice.
"She'll be all right," Maya said.
"Diane."
"I know she will," Richard said.
"She always has been."
He stood up and walked down the hallway.
Maya heard him go upstairs, heard the soft knock on Ethan's door, heard the door open and close.
Nicole sat at the table with her phone in front of her.
She looked at Paul's message still glowing on the screen.
She looked at it for a long moment.
Then she deleted it.
She turned the phone face-down.
She looked at Maya.
"Do you hate me?" she asked.
Maya looked at her mother — the pink dress, still on, and the ring still on her finger, and the way she was sitting now with nothing left to hold or manage.
"No," Maya said.
"But I need some time before I know what I feel."
Nicole nodded.
"That's fair."
"It's going to take longer than tonight," Maya said.
"Maybe longer than this week."
"I know."
"And it's going to take even longer with Ethan.
He's eight.
He understood more than you think."
"I know that too."
Maya stood up.
"Are you going to be all right tonight?"
"I'll be fine." Nicole looked at the table.
"You should go to bed.
You've been standing in the middle of this all afternoon."
"I wasn't standing in the middle of it," Maya said.
"You put me in the middle of it."
Nicole flinched.
Small, but there.
"Yes," she said.
"I did."
Maya picked up her phone from the counter and went to the hallway.
At the bottom of the stairs she stopped and turned back.
"The paper with your name on it," she said.
"The one in the shopping bag.
What was that?"
Nicole was quiet for a moment.
"My handwriting.
From when I took the test.
I wrote my name on it so I wouldn't mix it up with anything else." She looked down at her hands.
"I didn't even think about it.
I just — wrote it."
"And then you tried to use the test to blame me."
"Yes."
"And you'd forgotten the name was on it."
"Yes."
Maya stood there another second.
May you like
Then she went upstairs.
Behind her the kitchen light stayed on, and Nicole stayed at the table, and the phone stayed face-down on the wood, and the name she'd written on a piece of paper one morning three days ago had undone eight months of careful, terrible silence in the space of one afternoon.
