Chapter 3

On the night of our fifth wedding anniversary, I sat across from Mark at the same steakhouse where he had proposed to me.

The restaurant had barely changed.

The lights were still warm, and the old song playing above us was the same one we had danced to after I accepted his proposal.

Inside my handbag were the ultrasound report and a pair of tiny white socks I had bought after leaving the hospital.

I had planned to give them to Mark after dessert.

Despite the flowers, the receipt, and Elena’s card, some foolish part of me still wanted him to look me in the eyes and give me an explanation I could believe.

Mark cut a piece of steak and placed it on my plate.

“Try it, Claire. It still tastes the same.”

When he reached across the table and took my hand, my fingers touched the edge of the ultrasound report inside my bag.

For one second, I almost pulled it out.

Then his phone rang.

He looked at the screen, and his expression immediately changed.

“It’s Elena.”

He had never said her name to me before.

“She’s the mother of one of the seniors in my AP English class,” he continued quickly. “Her family has been having problems, and her daughter is upset.”

“Does she need you tonight?”

“She doesn’t have anyone else.”

Neither did I when my father was dying.

I looked at Mark’s hand covering mine and waited for him to silence the phone.

Instead, he released me and reached for his coat.

“I’ll check on them and come straight back.”

“What about our anniversary?”

“It won’t take long.”

I wanted to ask him to stay.

I wanted to place his hand over my stomach and tell him that his child was already here, even if neither of us could feel it yet.

But I needed to know whether he would choose me without being given another reason.

“Go,” I said.

Relief crossed his face.

He kissed my forehead and left me sitting beneath the candlelight.

I waited until his car pulled away before paying the bill and following him.

Mark drove past the school and stopped outside an expensive apartment building.

I parked across the street, my hands so cold that I struggled to turn off the engine.

Elena appeared beneath the entrance lights.

I recognized her as the mother of a girl in Mark’s AP English class. We had met once at a grocery store, and she had smiled as Mark introduced us.

Tonight, she walked straight into my husband’s arms.

Mark held her waist and kissed her forehead.

Then a boy of about seven ran out of the building.

“Dad!”

He threw himself at Mark.

Mark did not look surprised.

He did not correct him.

He lifted the boy into his arms as naturally as if he had done it many times before.

“I told you I’d come back,” Mark said.

My vision blurred.

The phone shook in my hand when I began recording.

Elena kissed Mark on the mouth, and the boy wrapped his arms around his neck.

The three of them disappeared into the building together.

I kept recording until the door closed.

Only then did I look down at my open handbag.

The tiny white socks lay on top of the ultrasound report.

I had spent the entire evening waiting to tell Mark he was going to be a father.

Across the street, another child was already calling him Dad.