Then he stepped back.
“You knew this for over a week?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was trying to figure out—”
“You were trying to figure out whether my entire life was a lie, and you thought I shouldn’t be involved?”
His voice wasn’t loud. That made it worse.
“Andrew, I was going to tell you—”
“When? After my father signed the company over? After my mother decided whether she wanted to abort her affair baby? After what?”
The word hit the room like a slap.
I flinched.
He saw it and shut his eyes briefly. “I’m sorry.”
Rain hammered the windows.
“I should have told you sooner,” I said again, because it was the only true thing left.
“Yes,” he said.
He picked up the ultrasound picture and looked at it for a long time.
When he spoke again, his voice had changed.
“I’m happy about the baby,” he said. “I need you to know that. I’m happier than I know how to say.”
My throat closed.
“But right now,” he continued, “I don’t know what is real in this house.”
Then he took his coat back off the hook and walked back out into the storm.
He went to his mother’s first.
I know because Eleanor called me forty minutes later.
“What have you done?” she said by way of greeting.
I was standing in our dark kitchen, staring at rainwater sliding down the glass doors.
“What I should have done the day it happened.”
“You stupid girl.” Her voice shook. “He is with Robert.”
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