Chapter 4: The Man Who Did the Arithmetic
Conrad found me in the kitchen twenty minutes later.
I had taken the children to the sitting room, settled them with the television on low, and told them I needed a few minutes.
Lily, the eldest by four minutes and the one who noticed everything, had looked at me with eight-year-old seriousness and said, "Is that man our dad?"
"Yes," I said.
"Does he know that yet?"
"He's figuring it out."
She had nodded, as if this were a reasonable answer, and turned back to the screen.
Conrad came into the kitchen and stopped near the counter.
He didn't sit.
He picked up a glass, set it down, picked it up again.
"Where's your fiancée?" I said.
"Outside.
She needs space."
"That seems fair."
He put the glass down for the final time.
"Cecily.
I need you to understand—"
"I understand perfectly," I said.
"You believed what you wanted to believe.
Your mother helped you believe it.
And I spent eight years managing the consequences of both of those things."
"I didn't know."
"I know you didn't know.
That's not the same as it being acceptable."
He was quiet.
"I came to you," I said.
"I showed you documentation.
I answered every question.
And you still decided I was lying.
You decided the most logical explanation was that I had manufactured a pregnancy to trap you, rather than that I was simply telling you the truth."
"I was twenty-nine and I was scared—"
"So was I." My voice didn't rise.
I had spent eight years learning not to let it.
"I was twenty-nine, I was scared, and I was pregnant with four children.
Alone.
And I didn't get to leave."
Conrad sat down at the kitchen table.
He put his face in his hands.
I waited.
"What are their names?" he said finally, his voice muffled.
"Thomas.
James.
Lily.
Rose."
He lifted his head.
His eyes were red at the edges.
"Which one was at the door just now?
The boy watching Eleanor."
"Thomas."
"He looks—" He stopped.
"Like you," I said.
"They all do, in different ways.
You'll see it more as the evening goes on."
He looked at me across the table.
"Why did you come?
Really.
You could have stayed in Phoenix.
You didn't have to bring them here."
It was a fair question.
I had asked it myself, every mile of the drive from the airport.
"Because they're eight," I said.
"And in a few years they'll be old enough to ask questions I won't be able to answer for them.
I wanted them to have seen this house.
To have stood in the same room as you.
So that whatever they decide about you later, they'll have something real to decide with."
"And what about you?
What do you want?"
"I want to understand what was in that letter.
All of it.
And I want to know whether your mother acted alone."
Something shifted in his expression.
"What do you mean?"
"The letter was from a clinic in Billings," I said.
"Someone requested a paternity consultation on my behalf.
I didn't request it.
You say you didn't request it.
Which means someone else did.
Someone who had access to my medical information and yours.
Someone who wanted a piece of paper that could be used to make you doubt me."
Conrad had gone very still.
"I never requested that," he said slowly.
"Then who did?"
He looked toward the hallway, in the direction of the study where Eleanor had retrieved the envelope.
"I need to talk to my mother," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"You do."
He stood up.
Then he paused.
"Cecily.
For what it's worth — I'm sorry.
I know that doesn't—"
"Go talk to your mother, Conrad."
He went.
I stood at the kitchen window and watched the snow come down over the dark Montana fields.
Behind me, from the sitting room, I could hear the low sound of the television and the occasional murmur of children's voices.
May you like
Then I heard Eleanor's voice from the study, sharp and sudden.
And then Conrad's — louder than I had ever heard it.
