Chapter 5: Ten Years of a Different Story
I sat in a hard plastic chair outside courtroom four and read the letter twice.
It was exactly what Diane had said.
A specialist's report.
Nathan's name.
A set of results.
A recommendation for further testing and a note about options going forward.
Tessa called while I was reading it.
I let it ring.
Nathan sat down beside me.
We didn't speak for a while.
"Did you know?" I said finally.
"About the letter?
No.
Not until Claire told me three weeks ago."
"Did you know about the results?"
"I knew there might be something.
I had the test done, and when I never heard back I assumed everything was fine." He paused.
"I should have followed up.
I didn't."
"So we spent two years trying, and then losing, and neither of us had the full picture."
"No," he said.
"We didn't."
I folded the letter and held it in both hands.
Down the hall, Diane was sitting on a bench by the window.
Claire was beside her.
They weren't talking.
Claire was looking at her phone.
Diane was looking at nothing.
"She said she didn't think I was right for you," I said.
"I know."
"Did she ever say that to you?"
Nathan let out a slow breath.
"Not in those words.
But she made it clear, over the years, that she had reservations."
"And you never told me."
"I didn't want to put you in the middle of it."
I looked at him.
"Nathan.
I've been in the middle of it for ten years.
I just didn't know."
He didn't answer that.
There was nothing to answer.
The thing was, I could see it now — the shape of the last decade rearranging itself.
Small moments I had misread.
Times I had felt Diane's coolness and assumed it was just her personality.
Times Nathan had smoothed things over so quickly I hadn't thought to ask why.
He hadn't been hiding an affair.
He had been managing a situation he didn't know how to name.
That didn't make it right.
But it was a different story than the one I had been living inside for months.
"I need to ask you something," I said.
"Okay."
"If none of this had come out — if Claire hadn't found that letter — were you ever going to tell me?"
Nathan was quiet for a long moment.
"I told myself I was waiting for the right time." He looked down at his hands.
"But I think I was afraid that if I told you what my mother had done, you'd leave anyway.
And I'd rather lose you to a misunderstanding than lose you because my family wasn't worth staying for."
It was the most honest thing he had said to me in months.
Maybe in years.
I didn't say anything.
I just sat with it.
Down the hall, Diane stood up from the bench.
She said something to Claire.
May you like
Claire nodded once.
Then Diane walked toward us.
