Chapter 4: What Donna Knew
Everyone looked at Donna.
She hadn't moved from her seat.
Her wine glass was still in her hand, but she wasn't drinking from it.
She was watching Susan the way you watch something you've been watching for a long time and have finally decided to stop pretending you haven't seen.
"Donna," Susan said.
"Stay out of this."
"I've been staying out of it for six years," Donna said.
"I think that's long enough."
Thomas turned to his sister.
"What do you know?"
Donna set her glass down.
"The necklace wasn't the first thing."
The table waited.
"Two years ago," Donna said, "when Claire had her second round of IVF—"
"Don't," Susan said.
"—Mom called the clinic."
The air in the room changed.
I heard the words.
I understood them individually.
But for a moment they didn't assemble into meaning.
Thomas said, "What?"
"She called the clinic," Donna repeated.
"I don't know exactly what she said.
But I know she called, because she told me.
She thought she was telling me something I'd agree with.
She said she'd spoken to someone there and made sure they understood the family's — she used the word 'concerns.'"
My hands were in my lap.
I looked down at them.
"Claire." Thomas's voice came from somewhere far away.
"Look at me."
I looked up.
"Did anything happen with the clinic?" he asked.
"Did anyone ever say anything strange to you?
Treat you differently?"
I thought about the second round.
The coordinator who had seemed cold from the first appointment.
The way one of the consultations had felt oddly rushed.
The letter we'd received suggesting we consider "alternative paths to family building" before we'd even completed the second cycle.
We had assumed it was standard language.
"I don't know," I said.
"I don't know what she said to them."
Thomas stood up.
"Mom." His voice had gone very quiet.
"Did you call Claire's clinic?"
Susan's chin lifted.
"I was trying to protect you."
"From what?"
"From wasting more years on something that was never going to work." She said it like it was reasonable.
Like it was obvious.
"I was trying to help you see—"
"You called the clinic treating my wife." Thomas's voice didn't rise.
It did something worse.
It emptied out.
"You interfered with her medical care."
"I made a phone call—"
"To a fertility clinic.
While your daughter-in-law was in the middle of treatment." He put both hands on the table.
"Do you understand what you're saying?"
Susan looked around the table.
She was looking for someone to be on her side.
Paul had pushed his chair back slightly.
Donna was watching her plate.
Matthew hadn't moved.
"Everything I did," Susan said again, "was for this family."
"Stop saying that," Thomas said.
"It's true—"
"It is not true." His voice cracked on the last word — not with anger, with something that had been held down for a long time.
"You have spent years making Claire feel like she was less than.
Less than a real wife.
Less than what I deserved.
And I let you.
Because I thought—" He stopped.
"Because of what you told me about Dad.
Because I thought I owed you something."
Matthew put a hand on Thomas's arm.
Thomas didn't pull away, but he didn't sit down either.
"I want to know," he said to his mother, "exactly what you said to that clinic.
I want to know every word."
Susan looked at him for a long moment.
Then she said: "Get me a lawyer first."
The table went completely silent.
Matthew closed his eyes briefly.
Donna made a small sound.
Paul stood up and walked to the window.
I sat very still.
May you like
Because what Susan had just said — the reflex of it, the speed of it — told me something I hadn't known before.
This wasn't the only thing.
