Chapter 6 - What He Wanted to Keep
Marcus cornered Claire in his parents’ den fifteen minutes before Sunday dinner.
The rest of the family was in the kitchen—his mother basting a roast, his father opening a bottle of wine, his younger sister setting out crescent rolls while Lily sat at the table drawing quietly. The normality of it pressed against Claire’s skin like heat.
Marcus shut the den door behind him. He looked exhausted now, less angry than strained, as if outrage had finally burned down into fear.
“You brought Lily here for this?” he asked.
“I brought her because your mother invited her.”
“This isn’t about my parents.”
“No,” Claire said. “It’s about you making sure everyone only knows the version that keeps you comfortable.”
He ran a hand over his face. “I was going to tell you.”
“When? Before or after Lily heard she ranked below Ethan?”
Marcus flinched. It was small, but real.
He lowered his voice. “I never said she ranked below him.”
“You used her college money to buy his piano.”
“I was going to repay it after bonus season.”
Claire gave him a long, level look. “That answer works on accountants. Not mothers.”
For the first time, he stopped posturing. He sat on the edge of his father’s leather chair and looked older than forty-two.
“I didn’t know how to do this without destroying everything.”
Claire stayed standing. “You already did.”
He stared at the carpet. “When Vanessa got pregnant, I panicked. Then Ethan was there, and I couldn’t just walk away from him.”
“But you could lie to Lily.”
“I never wanted her hurt.”
Claire let that sit between them, obscene in its own simplicity.
“What did you want, Marcus?” she asked. “Say it plainly.”
He looked up. “I wanted time.”
“No. You wanted both. The house, the family dinners, the stable wife, the little boy who made you feel needed, the girlfriend who didn’t ask why you were late on Thursdays. You wanted everybody to accept half of you and call it enough.”
His jaw tightened. “You think this is easy for me?”
Claire nearly laughed, but the sound died in her throat. “You told our daughter another child was more deserving than she was. I’m not interested in whether this has been hard on you.”
He stood then, sudden and sharp. “What do you want from me? To choose? I can’t erase Ethan.”
“I never asked you to. I asked you to stop making Lily pay for choices she didn’t make.”
He took a breath and tried a different voice, softer, persuasive. The voice he used with adjusters, neighbors, anyone he wanted on his side. “We can handle this privately. I’ll put the money back. I’ll get a proper agreement in place with Vanessa. Just don’t do this in front of my parents.”
Claire saw it then with perfect clarity. Even now, what terrified him was not the truth itself. It was losing control over who got to hear it.
She stepped toward the door. “That’s exactly why it needs to happen.”
When she opened it, Marcus’s mother was standing in the hallway, one hand still on the serving spoon she had apparently carried out from the kitchen.
May you like
Her face was drained. She had heard enough.
“Marcus,” she said, her voice thin with disbelief, “what has she just said about another child?”
