Chapter 3 - The Confession To Kate
Kate was asleep on my couch when I entered the apartment.
A blanket covered her legs.
The television was playing silently.
I slipped off my shoes.
Kate opened one eye.
“You’re alive.”
“Barely.”
“What happened?”
“Long night.”
She sat up.
“You look like you had a fight with destiny.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“I read novels.”
I lowered myself into the armchair.
Kate studied me.
Then her joking expression disappeared.
“What?”
I stared at her.
“You remember Dante?”
Her mouth opened.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Claire.”
“He came into the ER.”
Kate sat completely upright.
“What?”
“He was shot.”
Her eyes widened.
“He’s alive.”
“Because apparently the universe has a sense of humor.”
Kate stared at me for several seconds.
“Does he know?”
I shook my head.
“About Mia?”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“I know.”
She lowered her voice automatically.
“Mia’s asleep.”
“I know.”
“You spoke to him?”
“He woke up.”
“And?”
I leaned back.
“He told me why he left.”
Kate waited.
I explained everything.
The questions about me.
His father’s death.
His decision to disappear.
The eight trips back.
Green Lake.
Owen.
When I finished, Kate was silent.
Finally she said, “That is simultaneously more understandable and more ridiculous than I expected.”
“Exactly.”
“He thought you married Owen?”
“Apparently.”
Kate rubbed her eyes.
“My brother wears socks with sandals.”
“I’m aware.”
“How did Dante see that and think, ‘Yes, Claire chose this man’?”
I laughed.
Quietly, because Mia was sleeping.
Kate smiled.
Then her expression softened.
“What are you going to do?”
I looked toward the hallway.
Mia’s bedroom door stood slightly open.
A strip of warm light from her night-light crossed the carpet.
“I don’t know.”
“You have to tell him.”
The words made my stomach twist.
“I know.”
“But?”
“I don’t know what happens after.”
Kate considered that.
“You don’t have to know.”
“He’s Dante Moretti.”
“He’s also Mia’s father.”
“That doesn’t magically make everything simple.”
“No.”
Kate reached across the coffee table and took my hand.
“But telling him the truth doesn’t mean handing him control.”
I looked at her.
“You decide what happens slowly.”
I exhaled.
“He missed everything.”
“I know.”
“Her first steps.”
“I know.”
“Her first word was ‘dog,’ even though we didn’t own a dog.”
Kate smiled.
“She was committed to the concept.”
“She started kindergarten without him.”
“I know.”
“She asked me last year whether her father knew she existed.”
Kate’s face changed.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I didn’t think he did.”
“And that was true.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe now the truth changes.”
I looked down at our joined hands.
“What if he wants to be part of her life?”
“He probably will.”
“What if I don’t trust him?”
“Then he earns it.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then you make decisions based on that.”
Simple when Kate said it.
Far harder when the man in question carried six years of history and an entire life I still barely understood.
A tiny voice came from the hallway.
“Mommy?”
I turned.
Mia stood there wearing purple pajamas covered in moons, her dark hair tangled around her face.
Everything inside me softened instantly.
“Hi, bug.”
She padded toward me.
“You’re home.”
“I’m home.”
She climbed into my lap despite being increasingly too big for it.
I wrapped my arms around her.
She smelled like strawberry shampoo.
“Did Kate tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Moonlight won.”
“She did.”
Mia smiled sleepily.
“She beat Thunderbolt.”
“That’s impressive.”
“Thunderbolt cheats.”
Kate nodded solemnly.
“Everyone knows.”
Mia looked at me.
“Did you save somebody?”
My throat tightened.
She had asked this question since she was four.
Sometimes my answer was yes.
Sometimes it was, “We tried.”
Tonight I held her a little closer.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Then she rested her head beneath my chin.
Five minutes later, she was asleep again.
Kate watched me from the couch.
Neither of us needed to say anything.
The resemblance had always been there.
But now, after seeing Dante’s eyes open in that hospital bed, it seemed impossible to miss.
The same dark eyes.
The same straight nose.
Even the same small crease between their eyebrows when they were concentrating.
I had spent years telling myself Mia looked mostly like me.
That morning, for the first time, I admitted the truth.
May you like
She looked like both of us.
I slept four hours.
