Chương 9
“Were you already sleeping with Richard?”
Margaret flinched.
“No.”
“Did you love him?”
“Not then.”
“Did you love William?”
“Yes.”
Claire folded her arms.
“Then why didn’t you tell him?”
Margaret looked down at her hands.
“My father said William would come back because he would feel obligated. He said I would ruin his career and spend the rest of my life wondering if he stayed because he loved me or because I trapped him.”
Claire stared.
“And you believed that?”
“I was twenty-one and pregnant and financially dependent on my parents. I believed whatever let me get through the day.”
“You could have written him.”
“Yes.”
“You had his address.”
“Yes.”
“You chose not to.”
“Yes.”
No excuses.
Claire almost preferred excuses.
Margaret touched the envelope.
“Richard offered to marry me before you were born.”
“Why?”
“He said he loved me.”
“Did he?”
Margaret looked toward the floor.
“In his way.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“It wasn’t always unhealthy.”
Claire’s jaw tightened.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not defending him. I’m trying to tell you the truth.”
“The truth would be a refreshing change.”
Margaret accepted the hit.
She continued.
“I said no at first. Then you were born.”
Her mouth trembled.
“You had jaundice. Nothing serious, but I was exhausted and terrified. My father barely spoke to me. My mother kept telling relatives I had married your father privately because she couldn’t tolerate the embarrassment.”
Claire blinked.
“What?”
“That was the story before there was even a marriage.”
“And Richard went along with it.”
“Yes.”
“So when William came—”
“Richard was already wearing a ring because people believed we were married.”
Claire stared at her.
The lie had grown socially before it became legally true.
It was exactly the kind of lie Claire could imagine in that family: not one grand conspiracy, but a series of choices made because correcting the previous choice would be humiliating.
“What happened that day?”
Margaret’s fingers tightened around the envelope.
“I was upstairs with you. Richard came in and said William was at the front door.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I thought I’d misheard.”
“What did you do?”
“I went to the top of the stairs.”
Claire’s breath caught.
“You saw him?”
“His back.”
The room went silent.
“He was standing in the foyer?”
“Yes.”
“How close were you?”
Margaret swallowed.
“Maybe twenty feet.”
“And he didn’t see you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I stepped back.”
Claire shut her eyes.
Margaret’s voice broke.
“You were crying. I was holding you. Richard came upstairs and asked me what I wanted him to do.”
“And you said send him away.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Margaret began crying then.
Quietly.
No collapse. No theatrical sobbing.
Her face simply lost the ability to contain what it had been containing.
“Because he was real,” she said.
Claire looked at her.
Margaret wiped her cheek.
“Until that moment, William was letters and memory and this terrible decision I had already made. If I walked down those stairs, everything would become real. I would have to tell him about you. I would have to tell my parents I had told him. I would have to decide whether I wanted him back. I would have to risk him looking at you and seeing obligation instead of love.”
“You decided for him.”
“Yes.”
“You decided for me.”
“Yes.”
“You decided he was safer not knowing.”
“No.”
Margaret shook her head.
“I decided I was safer if he didn’t know.”
Claire stared.
There it was.
Ugly enough to be true.
Margaret’s voice dropped.
“I wish I could tell you I did it for you. I did tell myself that for years. It sounded better. But I did it because I was scared.”
Claire looked at Emma.
The baby slept with one fist near her cheek.
“And afterward?”
“I married Richard.”
“Four months after I was born.”
“Yes.”
“Was that because of me?”
“Partly.”
“Did you love him by then?”
“I needed him. I was grateful to him. I confused those things with love for a while.”
“Did you ever love him?”
Margaret took time.
“Yes.”
That answer surprised Claire.
Margaret continued.
“There were good years. I don’t want to lie about those either.”
Claire thought of Richard in the rain beside the horse.
Good years.
Bad choices.
Cruelty and care living in the same person.
She hated how much more difficult truth was than villainy.
“What’s in the envelope?”
Margaret looked down.
“A letter I wrote William.”
“When?”
“The night after he came to the house.”
Claire stopped breathing.
“You wrote him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you send it?”
“No.”
Margaret held out the envelope.
Claire did not take it.
“What does it say?”
“That I had a daughter.”
Claire’s eyes filled.
“That he was her father?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“That I was sorry. That I had made a mistake. That I didn’t know how to fix it.”
“Why didn’t you send it?”
“My father found me with it the next morning.”
Claire’s face hardened.
“He stopped you?”
Margaret hesitated.
“No.”
That hesitation mattered.
“He told me if I sent it, he would cut me off financially. He said Richard would withdraw his proposal and I would be alone with a baby.”
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
“Would Richard have withdrawn?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
“So again, you chose.”
“Yes.”
Claire looked at the envelope as if it were something dangerous.
“Why did Richard have it?”
“I gave it to him.”
“Why?”
“The day we got married.”
Claire recoiled.
Margaret’s eyes filled again.
“I told him to destroy it.”
The words made Claire’s stomach turn.
“Jesus.”
“I know.”
“But he kept it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He says he couldn’t bring himself to burn proof of how frightened I was.”
Claire laughed sharply.
“That sounds like Richard rewriting himself.”
“Probably.”
“Or he kept leverage.”
Margaret went still.
Claire saw she had considered that too.
“Did he ever use it against you?”
“Not directly.”
“That’s not an answer.”
May you like
Margaret looked toward the bassinet.
“Whenever I talked about telling you, he reminded me what it would do to the family. To you. To Vanessa. To him. He would say I had already made the choice and that confessing later would only transfer my guilt onto everyone else.”
