Chapter 6: The Part He Didn't Want Her to See
I didn't sleep much that night.
I lay in Carla's guest room with the baby monitor on the nightstand, listening to the twins breathe through the speaker, and I thought about the message.
*Finn isn't the only one keeping secrets.*
By morning I had made a decision.
I drove home, fed the twins when my mother dropped them back, put them down for their nap, and then I sat at the kitchen table with Finn's laptop open in front of me.
He'd left it behind.
He always left it behind when he went to his brother's — said he needed to disconnect.
I'd thought it was healthy.
Now I thought about what else it might have meant.
I wasn't proud of what I did next.
But I also wasn't going to apologize for it.
His password was the twins' birthday.
I'd watched him set it.
The email account opened immediately.
I wasn't looking for love letters.
I was looking for the shape of something — the outline of a life I hadn't been shown.
I found it in the financial folder.
There were transfers I didn't recognize.
Not large ones — nothing dramatic.
Small amounts, every few weeks, going to an account I'd never seen.
The transfers went back eleven months.
Before Dana.
Before the twins were even born.
I sat very still.
Then I opened the most recent one and looked at the account name on the receiving end.
D.
Mercer.
Dana's last name, I realized, was something I didn't know.
I picked up my phone and called Carla.
She answered immediately.
"Did you sleep?"
"Barely.
Carla, what's Dana's last name?"
A pause.
"How would I know that?"
"The photo you took.
Did it show anything — a bag, a card, anything with a name?"
"No.
Just them walking." Another pause.
"Why?"
"I found transfers on Finn's account.
Going back eleven months.
To someone with the initials D.
Mercer."
Silence.
"Carla."
"I'm thinking." Her voice had gone careful.
"Eleven months is before the twins."
"Yes."
"So this started before Dana."
"Or Dana's last name isn't Mercer.
Or it's both." I closed the laptop.
"I need to find out who D.
Mercer is."
"Nora, you should talk to someone.
A lawyer, maybe.
Before you go further."
"I'm not going to do anything with it yet.
I just need to know what I'm dealing with."
"Okay." She exhaled.
"My friend Ruth — her husband is a family attorney.
I can call her."
"Not yet.
First I need one more thing."
"What?"
"I need to know if Finn's brother actually knows he's coming."
A long pause.
"You think he lied about where he's going?"
"I think," I said, "that I've been trusting a man who had a hidden account, a hidden relationship, and a hidden phone habit, and I should probably stop assuming I know where he is."
I heard Carla set something down on her counter.
"I'll call the brother," she said quietly.
She called back in four minutes.
"He hasn't heard from Finn," she said.
"He didn't even know anything was wrong."
I looked at the kitchen table.
The two mugs were gone — I'd washed them.
The table was clean.
The room was quiet.
"Right," I said.
"Nora.
Where is he?"
I looked at the window.
The empty yard.
May you like
The grass.
"I think we both know," I said.
