Chapter 6: What Sebastian Asked
Two weeks passed.
Diane kept asking me questions I didn't answer.
The children started a new session at their playgroup.
Owen learned to write the letter O and presented it to me on a piece of paper with tremendous seriousness.
Ivy lost her stuffed rabbit for three days and found it behind the radiator.
Noah developed a strong opinion about which cup was his and would accept no substitutes.
Life continued, the way it always had.
Sebastian called every other day.
Not to push.
Not to demand.
He called to ask how the children were, and I told him small things — the letter O, the lost rabbit, the cup situation — and he listened to all of it with a quality of attention that I found difficult to think about too directly.
On the fifteenth day, he asked if he could meet the children properly.
I said I needed more time.
He said of course.
On the seventeenth day, his lawyer called me instead.
Her name was Adrienne Cho.
She had a precise, unhurried voice and she got to the point within thirty seconds of introducing herself.
"Mr.
Vale has asked me to contact you regarding several matters," she said.
"The first is a formal acknowledgment of paternity, which he would like to proceed with at whatever pace you're comfortable with.
The second is a financial arrangement for the children's support, retroactive to their birth, which he considers a debt rather than a gesture.
The third is more complicated."
"What's the third?" I asked.
"He'd like to discuss the original marriage."
I sat down.
"It was never formally dissolved," Adrienne said.
"When Mr.
Vale ended the relationship four years ago, he did so personally and without legal process.
There was no divorce filing.
No annulment.
From a legal standpoint, the marriage is still valid."
The kitchen was very quiet around me.
"He knows this," I said.
"He has known since the week after the park.
He asked me to research it immediately." A brief pause.
"He asked me to tell you that he is not raising this as a legal strategy.
He wanted you to know the situation as a fact, and to make clear that whatever you decide, he will support it.
If you want the marriage formally ended, he will cooperate completely.
If you want time to consider, he will wait.
He said—" She paused again, and I had the impression she was reading from notes.
"He said to tell you that he spent four years believing a lie about you, and he does not intend to spend another four years making decisions without asking you first."
I looked at the letter O that Owen had given me, which I had stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a strawberry.
"I need time," I said.
"Of course," Adrienne said.
"There is no deadline."
After I hung up, I sat at the kitchen table for a long time.
Diane came in from the living room where she had been pretending to read a magazine.
"I heard some of that," she said.
"I know."
She sat down across from me.
She was four years older than me and had the particular quality of older sisters who have watched you make difficult decisions before and have learned when to speak and when not to.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"I'm thinking that I spent four years being angry at the wrong person."
"And now?"
"Now I'm trying to figure out what I actually feel about the right person." I looked at her.
"He ended our marriage because his grandfather handed him a folder full of lies and he believed it without asking me."
"That's not a small thing."
"No."
"But he also came after you in the park.
He didn't walk away when he saw Owen's eyes."
"He couldn't have walked away from that."
"Some men would have," Diane said simply.
I thought about that.
"He kept calling," she said.
"Every other day for two weeks.
Not to pressure you.
Just to ask about the children."
"I know."
"Owen asked me yesterday if the sad man from the park was going to come back," Diane said.
"I told him I didn't know.
He said he hoped so because the man looked like he needed someone to show him the letter O."
Something in my chest shifted in a way I wasn't ready to examine.
"He's three," I said.
"He's perceptive," Diane said.
"He gets it from you."
I looked at the refrigerator.
The letter O.
The strawberry magnet.
"I'm not ready to make any decisions," I said.
"You don't have to be." Diane stood up and put the kettle on.
"But Maya.
You've been carrying this alone for four years.
You don't have to keep doing that."
I didn't answer.
But I picked up my phone.
And I called Sebastian back.
"I'd like you to meet them," I said when he answered.
"Saturday.
Somewhere they feel comfortable.
The park near our building, not Central Park."
A silence.
"Yes," he said.
His voice was careful and very quiet.
"Whatever you want."
"Sebastian."
"Yes."
"If you meet them and then disappear — if something comes up, if the Vale world pulls you back, if this becomes inconvenient—"
"It won't."
"I need you to understand what I'm saying.
They are three years old.
They will remember you if you become real to them.
You cannot become real to them and then stop."
"I understand."
"Do you?"
"Maya." His voice was steady.
"I have missed three years and ten months of their lives because of a lie my grandfather told.
I am not going to miss another day."
I looked at the letter O on the refrigerator.
May you like
"Saturday," I said.
"Ten o'clock."
