Chapter 3: Don't Answer It
The phone buzzed against my palm like something alive.
Daniel.
The woman — I still didn't know her name — looked at the screen.
Then at me.
She pressed her lips together and said nothing.
"Don't answer it," she said finally.
Barely a whisper.
"Why?"
"Because he knows." She turned toward the window.
"I texted him twenty minutes ago.
I told him I was in a taxi.
I told him where I was going."
The call went to voicemail.
Three seconds later, it rang again.
The driver shifted in his seat.
He still hadn't turned around.
"What's your name?" I asked her.
She looked at me like the question surprised her.
"Cara."
"How did you meet him, Cara?"
She let out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh.
"Work function.
Eighteen months ago.
He was charming.
He remembered everything — what I drank, what I said, what I was wearing." She paused.
"He's very good at remembering things."
I knew that.
I had thought it meant he loved me.
The phone stopped ringing.
"The boy," I said.
"What's his name?"
Cara's jaw tightened.
"He calls him Max."
Something shifted behind my eyes.
I kept my face still.
"He showed you photos."
"Yes."
"More than one?"
"He has an album." She said it quietly, like it cost her something.
"Birthday photos.
The park.
Christmas.
He told me Max was his brother's son.
That his brother was going through a difficult time and he helped out a lot." She stopped.
"He said it like it was something to admire."
My hands were in my lap.
I looked down at them.
Twelve years.
I had spent twelve years believing we were grieving the same loss.
The fertility appointments.
The two rounds of treatment that failed.
The night he held me in the kitchen while I cried and said, *It's okay.
It's just us.
That's enough.*
"Did he ever mention a brother?" Cara asked.
"He has a brother," I said.
"Older.
They don't speak."
She nodded slowly.
"He mentioned that."
"Did he tell you why they stopped speaking?"
She shook her head.
I looked back out at the rain.
The street was empty.
The taxi meter had stopped running.
The driver had quietly turned it off at some point without saying a word.
"I need to see the photo again," I said.
Cara unlocked her phone without hesitating.
She handed it to me this time.
I looked at the boy.
Dark eyes.
Round cheeks.
A gap between his front teeth where a new one was coming in.
He was sitting on Daniel's shoulders at what looked like a fair, laughing, both arms stretched out like he was flying.
Daniel was laughing too.
I had not seen him laugh like that in years.
I handed the phone back.
"There's a woman in the background of that photo," I said.
"Behind the fence.
She's looking at them."
Cara frowned and looked again.
"I never noticed her."
"She's not smiling."
Cara zoomed in.
Her expression changed.
"Do you know her?" I asked.
Cara looked up slowly.
"That's his assistant," she said.
"Her name is Ruth."
My phone buzzed again.
Not a call this time.
A text from Daniel.
*Just checking you got home safe.
May you like
Dinner's almost ready.
Love you.*
