Bryte slid into her car, pulse racing as though she’d just escaped from a crazed killer instead of a handsome man who’d been interested in more than just her résumé. She closed the car door harder than necessary, the slamming sound reverberating in the mostly empty parking garage.
She turned the key in the ignition, and the radio came on loud, blasting an oldies station she’d played on the drive over. She reached for the knob and turned it down. She just wanted silence.
At the same moment that her hand touched the knob, the sound of the singing voices registered in her head, making a kind of unexpected sense. Heart singing, Ann and Nancy’s voices blending. She turned down the volume and leaned back against the seat with a sigh, the fingers of a headache beginning to massage her brain. It had been that damn Heart song that had started everything.
She recalled the image of sliding into the rental car that afternoon nearly four years ago, her heart heavy with what she’d just learned from the doctor. Heart was singing then, too, a “lost hit” that she’d forgotten all about until she heard it that day. As she listened to the words, the kernel of an idea took root in her mind, a vague what-if she never intended to go through with, until that very night, she did.
She shook her head to dislodge the memory and put the car into reverse, easing out of the parking space and pointing herself in the direction of home. She couldn’t get there fast enough. Once she got home, she could stop thinking of all this nonsense, immerse herself in her husband and child, in dinner and bath and story and bed, in the familiarity of a home she didn’t deserve but was desperate to hang on to. Her mistake was in the past, and with any luck, she would keep it there forever.
The noise of the television playing cartoons was the first thing she heard when she stepped inside the house. Bryte let the sound of normality wash over her as she stepped into the kitchen, already looking toward opening the refrigerator and what she would pull out to cook, just to keep busy.
But when she turned and saw Everett sitting at the kitchen table, she knew instinctively it wasn’t going to be that simple. His eyes, as they met hers, told her that something had happened while she was away. Something terrible. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her insides turning to jelly. She stepped toward him, but he put up his hand like a traffic cop. Don’t come any closer, he was saying. She stopped moving, her hand resting on the kitchen island.
“I saw Dr. Ferguson today,” he said.
No, no, no, no, no! her mind screamed. This can’t be happening. Not now. She blinked at him and said nothing.
“I’d intended it to be a surprise for you. Instead I got the surprise,” Everett added. He gave a little bitter laugh.
She nodded once and closed her eyes to block the vision of his mournful face. Her stomach twisted in on itself, and she gripped the island harder.
“He’s not—” His voice gave out, and he swallowed, cleared his throat, a choking sound. He tried his voice again. “He’s not mine.”
She understood that he wasn’t asking a question, that he’d drawn his own conclusion with no help or explanation. She nodded again and looked down, studying her white knuckles. She was hanging on to this island, and suddenly the name of this kitchen fixture had taken on a whole new meaning.
“Who?” he asked. The word felt like a slap, and she felt the impact of it reverberate through her. She’d been waiting for this moment—dreading that one word—for a long time.
She took a deep breath before answering. “Someone from work.” She paused. “It doesn’t matter.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, leaned forward as if he was trying to get a good look at her. “Doesn’t matter?” His voice was incredulous. “Of course it does.”
She looked toward the den, where Christopher was watching TV. She shushed him, turning to him with fire in her eyes. He leaned back, chastised. “You’re his father,” she said, keeping her voice even and calm with something inside her she didn’t know she possessed.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought until this afternoon. And you let me think that. Like an idiot.”
“You are his father,” she said again. “In every way that counts.” She thought of Christopher’s biological father tossing back gin and tonics like water, loving the sound of his own voice, reeking of a confidence that—in a weak moment years ago—had seemed like a good quality. She wanted no part of Trent except the part that had been invisible to the naked eye, the part that had enabled her to become a mother. She’d absconded with that part, and he’d never missed it, sleeping oblivious, his arms thrown over his head while she crept out of his hotel room as light dawned in the window over the bed.
Everett sighed, a long exhalation that sounded like it was coming from the huge crack in his chest, a crack she’d created just the same as if she’d swung a hatchet and lodged it there. She crossed over to him and knelt in front of him, her words tumbling out. “The words ‘I’m sorry’ fall so short, but . . . I was crazed over what I’d learned about you—about us—and I thought, I thought it would be a way that we could still have the family we wanted and—” She stopped, knowing how stupid this would sound but also knowing she had to admit to it. “I thought no one ever had to know and no one would get hurt. I was so, so stupid.” She tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look back at her. He kept his gaze just over the top of her head, looking instead at the refrigerator just behind her, papered with photos and reminders of the life they had together, their little family of three. He’d wanted nothing but that, and she’d been determined to give it to him.
A long silence passed. Her knees ached from stooping in front of him, but she didn’t dare move. She kept her posture penitent, staying as close as he would allow. “Is that who you met today? The ‘guy from work.’” He gave a little ironic laugh. “I thought it was weird that you suddenly wanted to go back to work.” He shook his finger at her. “But I believed you.” He put his hand back in his lap and kept his gaze there. “I always believed you.”
Her knees throbbing, she eased out of the position she was in and slumped into the chair next to his. She let the silence stretch between them for a few minutes as she gathered her words. She kept her gaze on the top of his head, willing him to look up even though she knew it was futile. She began to speak.
“You got called into that big meeting that day, and you couldn’t go to the doctor with me. You told me to tell you what I found out, and you said it so flippantly as you walked out the door. You said, ‘You tell the doc we’re up for the challenge.’ You kissed my forehead and sauntered out the door, and I so envied you, your ability to always expect the best. I’d lost that more and more with each passing month we didn’t get pregnant.”
She paused for him to speak, but he didn’t, so she continued. “So after the doctor told me what he found, I walked around numb for a while, just trying to figure out how to tell you. And what it meant. And I decided exactly what to say, had this whole rousing speech ready to give you. But when you walked in and asked how it went, I couldn’t bring myself to tell you that it was you. That no amount of trying was going to fix what was wrong.”
“So you lied to me,” he said.
She started to tell him it wasn’t a lie, but he was right. It was. “Yes,” she said. “I told you that we’d just have to try harder. And that night we did try. And all I could think while it was happening was, I’m probably ovulating and it doesn’t even matter.” She caught his eye, finally, and held his gaze. “It was never going to matter,” she said without flinching.