“So did I.”
The meaning reached Linda first.
Her smile collapsed.
Sandra lowered the charm.
“David,” Megan said quietly, “is the baby yours?”
Allison stepped through the door behind him.
“Nobody knows anything yet.”
Megan turned on her.
“You told us.”
“I told David what I believed.”
“No,” David said.
“You told me there was no one else.”
Allison crossed her arms.
“And you told Catherine plenty of things too, I’m sure.
Maybe don’t become morally delicate today.”
Megan inhaled sharply.
David’s mother looked between them.
“There was someone else?”
Allison did not answer.
The silence answered for her.
David’s phone rang.
Catherine.
For one wild second, relief moved through him.
He stepped away and answered immediately.
“Catherine.”
Aiden’s voice came through instead.
“Dad?”
David closed his eyes.
“Hey, buddy.
Where are you?”
“At the airport.
Mom said I could call before we get on the plane.”
Behind him, Megan and Linda were arguing with Allison in lowered, furious voices.
David pressed a finger to his other ear.
“Aiden, listen to me.
I need to talk to your mom.”
“Okay.”
There was a rustle.
Then Catherine’s voice.
Calm.
Distant.
Airport noise behind her.
“What is it?”
David had imagined this conversation differently many times during the divorce.
He had imagined Catherine pleading, accusing, bargaining, asking him to remember what they had been.
Now he was the one searching for words.
“You knew about the condo.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Long enough.”
“Why didn’t you say anything this morning?”
A pause.
“Would you have listened?”
David looked back at his family.
No.
He knew it immediately.
