Chapter 7: The Morning He Came Back
He came back two days later.
I was at the kitchen table when I heard his key in the lock.
The twins were in their bouncer seats in the living room, and I'd been drinking coffee and reading nothing, just waiting, the way you wait when you already know what's coming and you're only deciding how to meet it.
He came into the kitchen and stopped when he saw my face.
"Sit down, Finn."
He sat.
"I know you weren't at your brother's."
He opened his mouth.
"Don't," I said.
"I called.
He didn't know you were coming.
He didn't know anything was wrong." I set my mug down.
"So where were you?"
A long pause.
"I needed space to think."
"Where."
He looked at the table.
"I stayed in a hotel."
"Alone?"
The pause was its own answer.
"Finn."
"It's over," he said.
"I told her it's over.
That's what the two days were — ending it properly.
Saying what needed to be said in person."
The room was very quiet.
"You spent two days ending it," I said.
"In a hotel."
"I know how that sounds."
"I don't think you do." I stood up and went to the counter.
I picked up the piece of paper I'd left there — a printout of the bank transfers, eleven months of them, each one neat and small and damning.
I set it on the table in front of him.
"Tell me about D.
Mercer."
The color left his face.
Not slowly.
All at once.
"Where did you get that?"
"Your laptop.
You left it."
"You went through my—"
"You were in a hotel with another woman.
Don't talk to me about what I went through." I sat back down.
"Who is D.
Mercer?"
He stared at the paper.
His hands were flat on the table and very still.
"It's Dana," he said finally.
"Dana Mercer."
"You've been transferring money to her for eleven months."
"It wasn't — it wasn't like that."
"Then tell me what it was like."
He looked up.
And for the first time since any of this had started, he looked genuinely afraid.
Not of me.
Of the words he was about to have to say.
"She had some financial trouble last year.
Before we got together.
I was helping her out."
"You were sending money to a woman you weren't involved with yet."
"We were close.
I cared about her."
"While I was pregnant with your children."
He said nothing.
"While I was carrying twins, Finn.
While we were painting the nursery and picking names and I was reading about car seats at two in the morning — you were sending money to Dana Mercer."
"I know."
"How much?"
He hesitated.
"How much total?"
"About fourteen thousand."
The number landed like something physical.
Fourteen thousand dollars.
Over eleven months.
In quiet, careful increments that would never trigger a flag, never show up obviously, never make me look twice if I happened to glance at the account.
He had thought about how to hide it.
"I want you to leave," I said.
"Nora—"
"Not for a few days.
I want you to leave and I want you to call a lawyer, because I'm going to call one too." I stood up.
"And Finn — don't lie to your brother this time.
Tell him the truth.
You owe someone the truth."
He sat there for a moment longer.
Then he said, very quietly: "I'm sorry.
I know that doesn't fix it."
"No," I said.
"It doesn't."
He stood.
He looked at the twins through the doorway — both of them awake now, watching the mobile above them with the serious, focused attention that babies have, like the whole world is a problem worth solving.
He watched them for a long moment.
Then he picked up his keys and walked out.
The door closed.
One of the twins made a small sound — not crying, just noticing.
I went into the living room and crouched between their seats and put one hand on each of their small, warm chests.
"It's okay," I said.
May you like
"I've got you."
And somewhere in the saying of it, I realized I was also saying it to myself.
