Chapter 4: Not Yet
My sister Pam answered on the second ring.
"Hey, how are you feeling?
How's Noah?"
"I need you to come over."
A pause.
"What happened?"
"I'll tell you when you get here.
Please just come."
She arrived twenty minutes later.
I met her at the door before she could knock.
Noah was in my arms — I'd taken him from Gloria the moment I came back downstairs, and I hadn't put him down since.
Pam took one look at my face and didn't say anything.
She just stepped inside.
Owen and Gloria were in the living room.
Owen stood when he saw Pam.
Gloria stayed seated.
"Pam," Owen said.
"Good to see you."
Pam looked at him the way she'd looked at every boyfriend I'd ever had who disappointed me.
Like she was updating a file she'd been keeping for years.
"Owen," she said.
Then she turned to me.
"Kitchen?"
We sat at the table.
I told her everything.
The voices.
The nursery.
The diaper bag.
The photos.
The name.
Pam listened without interrupting, which was unusual for her.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"What did Owen say when you asked him to explain?"
"He said it ended before we met.
He said she lost a baby and never recovered.
He said Gloria told her about Noah."
"And what was the thing Gloria stopped herself from saying?"
I looked at her.
"You said Gloria started to say 'she's not just' something.
And then she stopped."
"Owen told her not to say it."
Pam folded her hands on the table.
"Valerie.
I need you to think about this carefully.
What is the one thing that would make this worse than it already is?"
I had been not-thinking it since the hallway.
Since the moment Gloria's mouth had opened and Owen had cut her off.
"If Diane wasn't just an ex," I said slowly.
Pam waited.
"If she was something more recent."
"Or," Pam said, "if she wasn't just an ex at all."
The back door opened.
Owen leaned in the doorway.
He had that look again — the one that was not quite an apology.
"Can we talk?
Just the two of us."
"You can talk in front of Pam."
His jaw tightened.
"Valerie."
"She stays."
He came in and sat down across from me.
He looked at his hands for a moment, then at me.
"Diane and I were together for three years.
It wasn't eight months before you and I met.
It was three months."
The number landed like something dropped from a height.
"Three months."
"I know what I told you.
I know that was wrong.
I was ashamed of how fast it ended and I didn't want to explain the whole thing."
"What is the whole thing?"
He was quiet.
"Owen.
What is the whole thing?"
"She didn't just lose a baby." He looked up.
"She lost our baby."
Pam's hand moved across the table and covered mine.
I didn't feel it.
"You had a baby with her."
"We lost the baby.
She was six months along.
It was—" He stopped.
"It was devastating.
For both of us.
But I handled it badly.
I pulled away instead of staying.
She never forgave me for that.
I never fully forgave myself."
"And your mother has been in contact with her this whole time."
He didn't deny it.
"How long has Gloria been in contact with Diane?"
"I didn't know how much contact until recently."
"That is not an answer."
"Years," he said.
"They stayed close.
Mom felt responsible.
She thought I'd abandoned Diane when she needed me most."
I looked at him for a long time.
"Did you bring Diane to hold Noah because your mother felt guilty?"
"No.
I didn't plan any of it.
Mom organized it without telling me the full—"
"But you went.
You took our son to that gathering and you stood in the same room while your ex-girlfriend held him.
And you didn't tell me.
And when you came home and I was awake, your first instinct was to say nothing."
He didn't answer.
"What were you going to tell me, Owen?
If I hadn't seen the photo?"
He looked at the table.
"Were you going to tell me anything?"
Nothing.
Pam's voice was very calm.
"I think you should give Valerie some space tonight."
Owen looked up sharply.
"This is my house."
"It's her house too," Pam said.
"And she just gave birth a month ago and found out her husband has been lying to her since before they met.
So yes.
Give her some space tonight."
Owen stood up slowly.
He looked at me like he was waiting for me to stop him.
I didn't.
He walked out of the kitchen.
A moment later I heard the front door open and close.
Pam poured me a glass of water and set it in front of me.
"There's more," I said.
"I can feel it."
"I know," she said.
"But not tonight."
From the living room, Gloria hadn't moved.
She was still sitting exactly where I'd left her.
And when I walked past the doorway with Noah in my arms, she looked up at me with an expression I hadn't seen on her face before.
Not guilt.
May you like
Not defiance.
Fear.
