Chapter 2
“Enough, Nate.” I held the yellow quilt against my chest. My voice came out calmer than I expected. “Tell me the truth. Right now.”
Nate looked toward Maisie. Rachel had led her to the other side of the living room, where Nate’s mother was crouching beside her, opening a neatly wrapped cookie.
It was one of the favors I had bought for my guests.
“We don’t have to do this in front of everyone,” Nate said.
“You brought her to my baby shower and put my daughter’s quilt around her shoulders. You think this can still be handled privately?”
His jaw tightened.
Elise remained by the dessert table. She set down the rabbit-print gift bag she had been holding. A corner of pink wrapping paper showed through the top.
She hadn’t been dragged here at the last minute. She and Maisie had been part of the plan.
“How much of her life have you been part of?” I asked Nate.
He looked away.
“Birthdays, doctor visits, preschool events,” Elise answered. “He didn’t live with us, but Maisie knew he was her father.”
I kept my eyes on Nate.
“Every time you came home, you lied to me.”
“Don’t make every visit sound like a betrayal.”
“The visits weren’t. The lies were.”
Rachel spoke before I could.
“Nate, stop saying that.”
Every face turned toward her.
She looked sick, but her hand stayed on Maisie’s shoulder. “Mara had a right to know. We kept waiting for a time when telling her would cost us less.”
A laugh slipped out of me. It was so brief I barely recognized it.
“So you all decided when I was allowed to know that my husband had a daughter?”
Rachel looked down.
Her phone lit up in her hand.
The lock screen showed a picture from last summer: Maisie sitting on Nate’s shoulders by a lake, Nate’s mother standing beside them, Rachel smiling into the camera with an ice cream cone in her hand.
I knew the date.
That was the week Nate had told me there was an emergency at the plant. He said he had to leave town for three days. He had even canceled our anniversary dinner.
He hadn’t gone anywhere for work.
He had taken another child on vacation with his family.
I didn’t reach for Rachel’s phone. I didn’t need to. The way she quickly turned the screen off told me everything.
“You went to her birthdays,” I said.
Nate’s mother stood, her voice tight with irritation. “Of course we did. Maisie is Nate’s child. She’s family. She had it hard enough when she was born. Were we supposed to act as if she didn’t exist?”
“Was she the one you hid, or was I?”
“No one wanted to hurt you,” Nate said.
“But every one of you did.”
Elise pressed her lips together.
“I didn’t have to ask him to divorce you. He kept telling me your marriage was already finished.”
Her eyes dropped deliberately to my stomach.
“Then you got pregnant, and every promise he made Maisie moved another year away.”
I looked at the gift bag beside her.
“Then why are you here today?” I asked.
“Because he was never going to tell you unless there were witnesses.”
Nate turned toward her. “Elise.”
“You said today would settle it,” she said. “You said once Mara saw Maisie with the family, she wouldn’t make you hide her again.”
“I never made him hide anyone,” I said. “I didn’t know she existed.”
Elise’s mouth tightened, but she did not look away.
“I was tired of taking my daughter out through one door every time you came in through another. Maisie is about to have a sister. She shouldn’t have to be hidden anymore.”
“Who said she was getting a sister?”
His eyes dropped to my stomach.
“Our daughter.”
“My daughter isn’t a gift you get to use to build Maisie a family.”
For once, Nate had nothing ready to say.
I turned to get my coat.
My fingers had barely touched the back of the chair when Nate caught my wrist.
He wasn’t rough, but the assumption behind the gesture made me pull away harder.
“You can’t leave right now,” he said. “You’re pregnant. You’re upset.”
“I’m very clear-headed.”
His voice dropped. “I know I was wrong. I should have told you. But Maisie didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m not giving her up.”
I waited for the rest.
Nate looked at me as if he were asking for something reasonable.
“I’m not giving up you or our baby either.”