Chapter 6: What Rachel Knew
I didn't respond to Rachel's message that night.
I put my children to bed, answered their questions as simply as I could — Daddy has gone to stay somewhere else for a little while, everything is okay, you haven't done anything wrong — and then I sat on the edge of my son's bed until he fell asleep with his hand loosely around my wrist.
My mother stayed the night.
She slept in the guest room without being asked.
In the morning she made breakfast and didn't bring up Michael or Rachel once, which was the kindest thing she could have done.
It was three days before I called Rachel.
She picked up immediately, as though she had been holding the phone.
"I wasn't sure you'd call," she said.
"You said there were things I didn't know.
I want to know them."
A pause.
"Can we meet?
In person?"
"No.
Tell me now, on the phone, or don't tell me at all."
Another pause.
Longer.
"Michael didn't end up with me by accident," she said.
"He came to me.
After your miscarriage.
The third one."
The kitchen went very still.
"What?"
"He told me he didn't know how to talk to you anymore.
That you were grieving and he didn't know how to reach you.
He said he felt alone." Her voice was careful, measured, as though she had rehearsed this part.
"I know that doesn't excuse anything.
I'm not saying it does."
"You're saying he came to you when I was at my lowest point."
"Yes."
I sat down.
I hadn't realized I was standing.
"And you let him."
"I did." Her voice dropped.
"I told myself it was comfort.
That it wouldn't go further.
I was wrong."
"Rachel." I stopped.
Started again.
"I called you every week that year.
Every week.
You came to the hospital with me for the second one.
You held my hand."
"I know."
"And the whole time—"
"Not the whole time.
It started after the third.
But yes.
I know what I did."
I didn't say anything for a long moment.
"Is that all?" I asked finally.
"Is that what you needed to tell me?"
"There's one more thing." She hesitated.
"Michael asked me once if I thought you suspected anything.
About eight months ago.
I told him I didn't think so.
I told him you trusted him completely."
The air went out of the room.
"You told him I trusted him completely."
"Yes."
"So he knew he was safe."
"I think so."
"You helped him feel safe."
She didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
"I have to go," I said.
"I'm sorry," Rachel said.
"I know that doesn't fix anything.
I just — I needed you to hear it from me before you heard it somewhere else."
"Before I heard it somewhere else," I repeated.
"What does that mean?"
Silence.
"Rachel.
What does that mean?"
"Michael told someone else about the apartment.
A friend of his.
I don't know how much that person knows or who they might have told."
"Which friend?"
She gave me a name.
A man I had known for eight years.
Someone who had been at our wedding.
Someone who had been to our house for dinner a dozen times and sat across from me and smiled and asked about the children.
"He knew," I said.
"I think so.
Yes."
I ended the call.
I sat at the kitchen table for a long time.
Outside, my children were in the garden.
I could hear them arguing cheerfully about something small and unimportant.
My mother came in from the hallway.
She looked at my face.
"What is it?" she said.
"It's bigger than I thought," I said.
"It's been bigger than I thought for a long time."
She sat down across from me and folded her hands on the table.
"Then we deal with it," she said simply.
May you like
"Tell me what you need."
It was the first moment since the backyard that I felt something other than cold.
