Chapter 5: The Woman at the Door
My finger hovered over the intercom button.
"Don't," Andrew said.
He was already standing.
"Let me go down.
Let me talk to her first."
"She came here for a reason," I said.
"She has a child with her, Andrew.
It's late."
"I know.
Just — give me five minutes."
I pressed the button.
"Hello?"
A pause.
Then a voice, careful and tired.
"I'm sorry to come so late.
My name is Claire.
I'm looking for Andrew.
I think — I think this is the right address."
I looked at Andrew.
He closed his eyes.
"Come up," I said, and buzzed the door open.
He turned away from me.
"You didn't have to do that."
"She's standing outside in the cold with a toddler." I set the phone down.
"Yes I did."
When the knock came two minutes later, I opened the door myself.
She was smaller than the photograph suggested.
Mid-twenties, dark hair pulled back, wearing a coat that had been good quality once.
The boy on her hip was round-cheeked and solemn, watching me with large dark eyes that were unmistakably Andrew's brother's — or Andrew's.
I couldn't separate them yet.
"I'm sorry," she said immediately.
"I tried calling.
I tried messaging.
I didn't know what else to do."
"Come in," I said.
She stepped inside carefully, like someone who expected to be turned away.
Andrew was standing at the end of the hallway.
She saw him and stopped.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Then Eli reached one small hand toward Andrew and said, clearly and without any prompting, "Daddy?"
The word hit the hallway like a stone hitting water.
Claire's face went red.
"He does that," she said quickly.
"He does that with men — he doesn't have — I'm sorry, he doesn't know what it means yet, he just—"
"It's all right," I said, because someone had to say something.
Andrew crouched down to Eli's level.
The boy looked at him with total seriousness.
Andrew's expression was something I had never seen on him before — not guilt exactly, and not grief exactly, but something made of both.
"Hey, buddy," he said softly.
Eli studied him for another moment, then turned and buried his face in Claire's shoulder.
We moved to the living room.
Claire sat on the edge of the sofa with Eli in her lap.
I brought water.
Andrew sat in the chair across from her, and I sat beside him, close enough that our arms touched, because I needed to feel where the boundary was between us and everything else in the room.
"I wouldn't have come," Claire said, "if I had anywhere else to go."
"Tell me what's happening," Andrew said.
She looked at her hands.
"We were evicted six weeks ago.
I've been staying with a friend, but she has her own family and it was always temporary.
I have a job interview next week — a real one, a good one — but I need a deposit for a place before then, and I don't have it, and I don't have anyone to ask." She looked up.
"Daniel talked about you constantly.
Especially at the end.
He said you were the one person he trusted completely.
He said if anything ever happened, you'd—" She stopped.
"I'm not trying to make you feel guilty."
"You should," Andrew said.
Claire blinked.
"You should make me feel guilty," he said.
"I made a promise and I disappeared.
There's no version of that where I'm not the one who failed."
The room was quiet.
Eli had fallen asleep against Claire's shoulder, his mouth slightly open, one fist curled around the collar of her coat.
"I have a question," I said.
Both of them looked at me.
"The photograph.
The one you gave my father.
You had our address on the back of it." I kept my voice even.
"How long have you had that address?"
Claire hesitated.
"About four months."
"And you came to my father's office first.
Not here."
"I was afraid," she said simply.
"I didn't know what I'd find.
I didn't know if Andrew had told you about us.
I didn't want to show up and cause damage I couldn't undo." She glanced at Andrew.
"I went to your father-in-law because I thought maybe he could — I don't know.
Warn you.
Prepare you.
I didn't think he'd come here himself."
I looked at Andrew.
He was looking at the sleeping boy.
"What do you need right now?" I asked Claire.
"Tonight.
Specifically."
She looked at me with an expression that said she hadn't expected the question to be that direct or that practical.
"A place to sleep," she said.
"Just tonight.
And maybe — if it's not too much — someone to tell me it's going to be all right.
Even if they're not sure."
I stood up.
"The guest room is made up."
Andrew looked at me.
I didn't look back at him.
Not yet.
May you like
There was too much still sitting between us that needed its own time.
But Claire and Eli were here, and they were tired, and some things don't wait for the right moment.
