Chapter 8: Unfinished Business
I called Marcus and asked him to meet me.
He suggested a pub.
I said no.
I suggested his house.
He agreed, which told me he still believed he could manage this on his own ground, in his own space, on his own terms.
That was fine.
I wasn't going there to be managed.
He opened the door in the same easy way he always had.
Relaxed.
Unhurried.
As if the last two weeks had been ordinary ones.
"Daniel."
"Marcus."
I came in this time.
I sat down in his living room — the same room where I'd watched football, where I'd helped him move furniture when he bought this place, where I'd once spent a New Year's Eve because Claire had been too tired to go out and he'd said come anyway, bring a bottle, we'll see it in together.
He sat across from me.
"The test came back," I said.
Something moved in his face.
"And?"
"She's mine."
He let out a breath.
I watched him do it — watched the tension leave his shoulders — and I felt a cold clarity settle over me.
"You're relieved," I said.
"Of course I am.
This is better for everyone."
"Better for you."
"For everyone, Daniel.
For the baby.
For your family."
"You told Claire it wasn't your problem," I said.
"She was pregnant.
She didn't know whose child she was carrying.
She came to you, and you told her to handle it."
"I told her the truth.
The situation was—"
"She was alone with it for eight months, Marcus.
Eight months.
While you went on with your life.
While you came to my house at Christmas and ate my food and played with my boys and knew — you knew — that my wife might be carrying your child."
He leaned forward.
"I didn't know.
There was a chance.
A possibility.
I wasn't going to blow up three lives over a possibility."
"You blew up my life the moment you started sleeping with my wife."
He was quiet.
"I want to know one thing," I said.
"One honest answer.
Did you care about her at all?
Or was she just—"
"Don't."
"Was she just available?"
"It wasn't like that."
"Then what was it like?"
He stood up.
He walked to the window.
His back was to me, and I watched him decide how to answer, and I watched him choose wrong.
"It was complicated," he said.
"These things always are."
"She was lonely," I said.
"She'd spent years wanting something she felt she couldn't talk to me about.
And you were there.
And you let her believe it meant something."
He turned around.
"I never made her any promises."
"No.
You just took what she offered and then told her it wasn't your problem."
"What do you want from me, Daniel?
An apology?
Fine.
I'm sorry.
I handled it badly.
I should have ended it sooner.
I should have—"
"I want you to understand what you did," I said.
"Not to me.
To her.
She carried that alone.
She went through an entire pregnancy not knowing, and she carried it alone because the man she'd trusted told her it wasn't his concern.
Do you understand what that does to a person?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
And for the first time since this had started, I saw something in his face that wasn't calculation or defensiveness.
"I didn't think about it that way," he said.
"I know you didn't."
"Daniel—"
"I'm not here for an apology," I said.
"I'm here because I needed to say this to your face.
Because you sat at my table.
Because you held my son.
Because you were my friend, and I needed you to hear from me directly what that friendship was worth to you."
He didn't answer.
I stood up.
"I'm going to tell people," I said.
"Not to hurt you.
But I'm not going to protect you either.
Our mutual friends will know why you're no longer in my life.
I won't lie about it and I won't soften it.
If that costs you something, that's the consequence."
His jaw tightened.
"That's not fair."
"No," I said.
"It isn't."
I walked to the door.
Behind me, I heard him say: "I did care about her.
For what it's worth.
I just — I wasn't brave enough to do anything about it."
I stopped at the door.
I didn't turn around.
"That's the worst thing you could have said," I told him.
"Because it means she deserved better from both of us."
I closed the door behind me.
Not sl@mmed.
Closed.
May you like
Quietly.
The way you close a door on something that is finished.
