Chapter 4

Ainsley called at eight Sunday morning.

I had slept for less than an hour on the living-room couch. Hadley was curled in the armchair with a blanket over her head, although her room was twenty steps away.

"I didn't know the funeral was yesterday morning," Ainsley said.

No hello. No careful introduction.

"You filmed my husband cutting your son's cake."

"I filmed Tobin's birthday. Kellan told me your mother's service had been moved to three."

I looked at Hadley's bare feet sticking out from the blanket.

"It was at eleven."

Ainsley went quiet.

In the background, a cabinet slammed and a boy asked, "Mom, where's the cereal?"

Tobin. His voice was higher than I expected.

"Top shelf," Ainsley called. Then, to me, "He said he could do both. I offered to move the cake."

"He told us he was unlocking the school for a repairman."

"Jesus."

"When did you contact him?"

"March tenth. Tobin found an old picture of us in my mother's things. He kept asking, and I ran out of lies that didn't make me hate myself. The DNA result came back April seventeenth."

At least that date matched.

"What did Kellan tell you about me?"

Ainsley let out a breath that crackled against the phone.

"He said you knew he might be Tobin's father. He said you couldn't deal with it while your mother was sick."

"I learned your name yesterday."

"He told me your marriage was over except on paper."

Hadley pulled the blanket down. Her eyes were open.

I stood and walked into the kitchen, but she followed.

"Did you sleep with him?" I asked.

"No."

The answer came fast, angry rather than guilty.

"Did you want to?"

"For about five stupid minutes in April. Then I remembered the man I dated at twenty-two could make a lie sound like he was sparing your feelings. I thought he had outgrown it."

That was the first thing she said that sounded like a person instead of a witness.

"Why did you keep seeing him?"

"Because my son had spent half his life asking why his father didn't want him. Because Kellan showed up with a soccer ball and remembered how Tobin took his hot dog after hearing it once. Because I wanted to believe one decent father had come out of one bad decision. Pick one."

Her voice broke on the last sentence.

I leaned against the counter. Part of me wanted to hurt her simply because she had been standing in a room where Kellan smiled yesterday. The ugliness of that desire did not make it disappear.

"You believed whatever let you have him," I said.

"Yes."

No defense. Somehow that made it harder to fight her.

Tobin spoke again in the background.

"Is Dad still coming Tuesday?"

Ainsley covered the phone, but not before I heard him add, "Is that Tamsin?"

There was muffled movement, then his voice came closer.

"Can you ask why she hates me?"

Hadley made a small sound beside me.

Ainsley returned to the call. "He saw Hadley's name on Kellan's phone. Kellan told him you were having a hard time accepting things."

"Accepting what? I didn't know he existed."

"I know that now."

"He made me the woman keeping a boy from his father before I even knew there was a boy."

Ainsley did not answer.

Hadley took the phone from my hand.

"Put Tobin on."

I reached for it. She twisted away.

"Hadley, no."

"He thinks my mom hates him. Put him on."

Ainsley said something to Tobin. A chair scraped.

"Hello?" he said.

Hadley's anger vanished so suddenly she looked lost without it.

"I don't hate you."

Tobin sniffed. "Then why don't you want me in your family?"

"Because I didn't know you were in it."

"Dad said you did."

"He lied."

The word came out too hard. Tobin started crying before he could mute himself.

Ainsley took the phone back.

"That's enough."

"No, it isn't," Hadley said. "He needs to know."

"He is twelve. He needs breakfast."

Ainsley hung up.

Hadley stared at my phone.

"I made him cry."

"Kellan made this."

"But I said it."

She sat on the kitchen floor with her back against the dishwasher. I sat beside her, both of us in yesterday's clothes while sunlight reached across a counter full of funeral food.

Ten minutes later, Ainsley called again.

"Tobin's in the shower," she said. "There is something else. Kellan told him all four of you might live closer by summer."

"All four?"

"You, Kellan, Hadley, and Tobin. He applied for a music position in the Redfern district. He drove Tobin past a rental house with four bedrooms."

Hadley's head snapped up.

"He was moving us?"

"Kellan said you and he had discussed it," Ainsley said. "He said your father planned to sell after the funeral, so there would be no reason to stay in Marlowe."

Mom had been dead five days.

Kellan had not merely waited for my grief. He had built his plan around it.

My hand tightened around the phone.

"Send me the job posting and the address. Nothing from Tobin's private messages."

"Why?"

"Because tomorrow morning I'm seeing a lawyer."

Hadley looked at me, frightened and relieved at once.

Ainsley was silent for a beat.

"Good," she said. "Maybe one of us should finally do something he didn't plan."