Chapter 3

At five forty on Saturday afternoon, I put on Daniel's favorite navy dress and slipped the ultrasound into my purse.

His call came before six.

"I'm sorry. One of the investors is leaving town early, and I have to meet him at the hotel first. Go straight to the restaurant. I promise I'll be there before seven."

In the background, I could hear children singing.

"There's a children's choir at the hotel tonight?" I asked.

Daniel hesitated, then laughed.

"The lobby is hosting a holiday event. Nora, stop worrying. I said I'll be there, and I will."

"I really do have something important to tell you tonight."

"I know." Impatience slipped into his voice, though he still tried to sound gentle. "Order something and don't let yourself get hungry. I'll come as soon as I'm done."

When the call ended, I did not drive to the restaurant.

I went to St. Catherine's Academy.

The Winter Lights dinner was open to parents and donors. Hot cider waited outside the auditorium, and the courtyard was filled with children carrying paper lanterns.

From behind a tree across the street, I saw Daniel immediately.

He had never gone to meet an investor.

He was wearing the gray sweater I had given him the year before. Beside him stood a woman with long hair. Her name tag read LAUREN HALE.

L.H.

The initials on the perfume bottle.

A little girl of seven or eight came running toward them with a paper lantern and threw herself into Daniel's arms.

"Daddy! You really came!"

Daniel laughed as he lifted her and wiped frosting from the corner of her mouth.

"When have I ever broken a promise to you, Mia?"

The girl wrapped her arms around his neck with the ease of a child who had called him Daddy hundreds of times.

Daniel did not correct her. He did not look surprised.

Lauren straightened his collar, annoyance in her voice.

"Hasn't Nora been texting you? If you're worried about her, go home."

Daniel glanced at his phone.

"She can take care of herself. She made it through three transfers. Missing one dinner won't kill her."

My hand went rigid around my purse.

Lauren knew my name. She even knew how many embryo transfers I had endured.

Daniel had turned the pain I suffered on an operating table into a story he used to reassure another woman.

"What if this round failed too?" Lauren asked.

Daniel crouched to straighten Mia's paper lantern. His voice did not change.

"Then we accept it. We've already wasted four years on a child who may never come. I won't let it control my life anymore."

After our first transfer failed four years earlier, Daniel had held me and said he would never believe I owed him a child, even if we never had one.

He had not accepted a life without children.

He had simply started being a father to someone else's daughter.

I called him.

From across the street, I watched him hand Mia to Lauren and step beneath a tree to answer.

"Are you still at the hotel?" I asked.

"Of course. The meeting just ended. I'm on my way."

When he heard the children singing through my phone, Daniel looked back toward the courtyard and lowered his voice.

"I already explained that. It's the event in the hotel lobby. Nora, I'm exhausted. Do you have to interrogate me tonight?"

I watched him from across the street, and our seven-year marriage suddenly felt like a cruel joke.

"All right," I said. "I'll wait for you at the restaurant."

The irritation vanished from his face the moment the call ended.

Mia ran back and wrapped herself around his leg.

"Will you spend next Thanksgiving with me and Mommy too?"

Daniel crouched and pinched her cheek.

"I'm already your Daddy. Of course I'll be there."

Lauren smiled at him.

"What about Nora?"

Daniel stood. His voice was as calm as if he were scheduling an ordinary meeting.

"I'll handle it."

At that moment, every light in the courtyard came on.

The crowd applauded. Lauren rose on her toes and kissed Daniel.

He hesitated for only a second before putting a hand around her waist and deepening the kiss.

Mia stood between them, holding her paper lantern and smiling as if the whole world were celebrating their family.

I took out my phone and recorded Mia calling him Daddy. I recorded Daniel saying, "I'm already your Daddy." I recorded his lie to me and the kiss that followed.

The ultrasound in my purse creased beneath my hand.

Our baby was eight weeks old. Daniel did not even know it existed.

Only minutes earlier, he had said we had wasted four years on this child.

I did not storm into the courtyard. I did not give him another chance to explain.

Back in my car, I sent the videos and the school's address to Catherine.

She called almost immediately.

"Are you sure you want to file now?"

I looked through the windshield at the shadows of the three of them.

"I'm sure. Send me the papers tonight. I want to be gone before Daniel comes home."