Chapter 1 - The Cry Inside My House
The rear window exploded on my second swing.
Glass burst inward across Ryan’s back seat.
He came running out of the house before the last pieces finished falling.
“Are you insane?!”
Maybe.
At that moment, I didn’t care.
I dropped the baseball bat, reached through the broken window, unlocked the rear door, and yanked it open.
Then I pulled out the thing I had seen through the tinted glass.
An infant car seat.
Empty.
Clean.
A pale yellow blanket tucked beneath one strap.
I turned and shoved it toward my husband.
“Whose baby rides in your truck?”
Ryan stopped.
For three weeks, he had been coming home late.
Sometimes after midnight.
He said his mother needed help.
Evelyn’s knee was acting up. Evelyn had contractors at her condo. Evelyn didn’t like driving after dark anymore.
I had believed him until that afternoon, when I came home early from a client meeting and found a newborn car seat strapped behind the passenger seat of his pickup.
Ryan reached for it.
I pulled it against my chest.
“Don’t.”
“Claire.”
“Whose?”
His face went pale.
Not guilty-man caught-with-a-mistress pale.
Something else.
That almost scared me more.
Behind him, the front door opened.
Evelyn stepped onto the porch.
Perfect cream blouse.
Dark slacks.
Hair arranged like she had come for dinner instead of whatever this was.
Then she saw the car seat.
She froze.
Ryan saw her face and turned.
I followed his eyes.
Evelyn backed up.
Her keys slipped from her hand.
They hit the driveway with a sharp metallic clatter.
I stopped looking at Ryan.
“You know.”
Evelyn said nothing.
“You both know.”
Ryan stepped toward me.
“Claire, put the seat down.”
I laughed.
“Absolutely not.”
Then it came.
Soft.
Muffled by the walls.
A newborn crying inside my house.
Ryan and I both turned toward the front door.
Evelyn whispered:
“No…”
I dropped the car seat.
Not the way you drop something fragile.
It landed upright.
I walked toward the house.
Ryan moved in front of me.
“Claire.”
“Move.”
“We need to talk first.”
“The baby is crying.”
“Evelyn can—”
“Your mother looks like she’s about to faint.”
I tried to pass.
Ryan caught my arm.
I looked down at his hand.
He released me.
Good choice.
I went inside.
The living room looked normal.
That offended me somehow.
My throw pillows.
My books.
The lamp Ryan always forgot to turn off.
Then another cry came from upstairs.
Our guest room.
I ran.
“Claire, wait.”
I didn’t.
The guest-room door was partly closed.
I shoved it open.
A portable bassinet stood beside the bed.
Diapers on the dresser.
Bottles.
Formula.
A stack of tiny white onesies folded with military precision.
This was not something somebody had thrown together twenty minutes ago.
The baby was red-faced and furious beneath a pale green swaddle.
Tiny.
Maybe two weeks old.
I stood frozen.
I had spent the first thirty seconds of my breakdown imagining a mistress.
Now I couldn’t understand what I was looking at.
Ryan stopped behind me.
I turned.
“How long?”
He didn’t answer.
“How long has there been a baby in my house?”
“Since this afternoon.”
I looked around the room.
“Then where did all this come from?”
Evelyn appeared in the doorway.
Neither of them answered.
I went to the bassinet.
Ryan said:
“Claire, she just ate.”
“She’s crying.”
“I know.”
I picked her up.
My body remembered more than I wanted it to.
Support the head.
Bring her close.
Slow movement.
The baby quieted enough to stare at me with unfocused dark eyes.
My chest tightened.
Ryan watched my face.
That made me angry all over again.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t look at me like this proves something.”
He looked away.
I studied the infant.
A hospital band was still around one ankle.
I turned it carefully.
There was a surname.
BENNETT.
My surname now.
Ryan’s since birth.
I looked at him.
“Is she yours?”
His head snapped up.
“No.”
“Then whose?”
Silence.
I stared at Evelyn.
She covered her mouth.
“Evelyn.”
Her eyes filled.
“Tell me.”
Ryan spoke first.
“Jenna’s.”
I stopped.
His younger sister.
The woman I had been told was living in Arizona.
The woman I hadn’t seen in almost a year.
I looked down at the newborn.
“Jenna had a baby?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Twelve days ago.”
My head lifted.
“You knew.”
Ryan nodded.
“How long?”
He didn’t answer fast enough.
My arms tightened protectively around the child before I even understood why.
“How long have you known your sister was pregnant?”
Ryan looked at his mother.
Evelyn looked at the floor.
I asked again.
He said:
“Four months.”
The baby made a small sound against my chest.
I stared at the two people standing in my guest room.
Four months of lies.
Three weeks of late nights.
May you like
A newborn in my house.
And somehow both of them were looking at me as though the part they feared most had not happened yet.
