Chapter 3
“Are you all right?” Marti shouted. Her red curls sprayed raindrops as she pummeled the door.
Claire stood rigid as Marti embraced her.
“When you didn’t show up for lunch, I called your cell and got a weird message saying the number wasn’t in service, and then I called your office and they said you didn’t work there anymore, and then I called your landline, and it’s now a septic tank removal service! ”
“Crap.”
“Exactly. Why don’t you have a landline?”
“I never used it, and I’m trying to save money.”
“What’s going on?” Marti backed away. Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Why’re you wearing David’s jacket?”
“David has…had a son.” Claire hadn’t dared say it aloud, but she’d said it. Her heart felt like a rock, its weight weakening her knees.
Marti hung up her raincoat and wrapped her arm around Claire’s waist. “We need a drink.” She pulled Claire to the couch, sat her down, and handed her a tissue. “White okay, or does this call for bourbon?” She headed for the kitchen.
“White,” whimpered Claire. “Bring the bottle.”
“Why is there no food in the fridge, except for cheese and olives?”
“I’ve been working late at the office.”
“Uh huh.” Marti handed her a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and set down napkins and a plate of cheese and olives. “Houndstooth is definitely not your color. Why do you think David had a son?” She sat next to her.
Claire handed her the photo.
“Jeesh, he’s the spitting image of David.” She sipped her wine. “A doppelganger?”
“Too young.”
She flipped the photo and read the back. “Our Luca?” Marti’s sparkling brown eyes bored into Claire. “David wasn’t the type to cheat. He adored you. There must be an explanation. Have you looked through his laptop?”
“As confirmation that my husband had an affair?” Claire’s hand shook, splashing her wine.
“No.” Marti stood. “I’m defending your husband, who I know worshipped you since the day he followed us all over Paris until I left you for five seconds, and he spilled lemonade all over you and fell in love with you.
” She grabbed a napkin and wiped up the spill.
“Could he have donated sperm, I mean for money, when he was a college student?”
“I suppose. He did attend the University of Strasbourg, but I think he would have mentioned it.”
Claire stared at the photo, not at all worn or wrinkled, it looked as if David had touched it once, twice maybe. “He must have been wearing this sportscoat the day he died because I found it hanging on his desk chair.”
“Meaning the photo might have been news to him? Might that have caused his heart attack?”
“If it was news to him, maybe. But the coroner and David’s doctor confirmed he had Sitosterolemia which caused the heart attack. But if it was news to him, the shock could cause a weakened heart to stop, I guess?” She shook her head. “You’re the doctor. What do you think?”
“I’m a GP. I’d send you to a cardiologist.”
Claire sighed. “When he traveled to France twice a year to buy wines for his clients, he always asked me to accompany him. Every year he tried to convince me. ‘We can relive our honeymoon. Remember the fun we had browsing the Christmas markets in Alsace? Let’s do it again.’ I never went with him.
” A burbling ran through her stomach. “I was and still am driven by my quest of patenting a life-saving swimsuit. Which seems silly as I say it. Why didn’t I really want to return to France?
” Her vision blurred as if a fog wrapped around her.
“Earth to Claire.” Marti put her hands on her hips. “I asked, have you searched his laptop?”
“Rick fired me.” She shook her head to clear her mind.
“A week before Christmas? He can’t do that.” Marti blew out a breath that lifted her bangs. “You’ve been with that company for more than twenty years. Why?”
“My invention backfired, and the model accused me of trying to kill her, and she ran out of my office, screaming. She threatened to sue.” Claire jolted to her feet, trying to see above the fog swirling around her. “I have to call the engineer and order a new prototype.”
“Stop it. The model makes a living with her body. If your invention so much as scratched her, she could sue you for lost wages.”
“I think she was scared, and I don’t blame her, but I don’t think she was hurt, at least I hope not.”
“Oh Claire. You’ve become obsessed with this invention.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She pulled David’s jacket tighter around her. “I should have gone with him.”
“Want to give me a clue about what you’re referring to?”
Claire collapsed back onto the couch. “I always told David I couldn’t get time away, but really I wasn’t ready to start a family.”
“Don’t you think he knew that?”
“Did he?”
“He constantly joked about how your life-saving swimsuit project was no safety feature for your marriage.”
“Do you think he was unhappy?”
Marti headed for the kitchen. “I think he was lonely and missing you.”
So was I, thought Claire, but that was my own fault.
Marti put two bottles of mineral water on the coffee table, grabbed Claire’s hand, and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s search his laptop.”
Claire yanked her hand back. “No.”
“Why not?”
A numbness in her arms traveled up Claire’s shoulders.
“Well, I’m going to try. You stay here and drink.” Marti turned toward David’s office.
“No, don’t!” Claire cried.
“Stop stalling and find out who that child is.”
Claire’s mouth opened again, but no words came.
“What are you afraid of?”
Claire sucked in her bottom lip. A wave of, she didn’t know what, rose in her. She wiped her face and forced words out of an ugly, dark place deep within her. “What if he did have an affair? Then my marriage was all a lie.”
Marti sat on the couch and held Claire’s hand.
Like trying to pull herself free from an undertow, Claire gripped the edge of the coffee table. “Until that photo, I never acknowledged my obsession as an excuse. I guess I could have gotten time off, but I didn’t really want to go to France.”
Marti rubbed her eyes. “Oh, Claire,” she whispered, “why?”
Why hadn’t she? A roaring of water, like she was standing under a waterfall, filled her mind.
She covered her ears to stop the sound, but it blared.
“Not for my career, which was what I thought and David thought. But…” She looked up at her dearest friend.
“I told him I wasn’t ready to have children. ”
“Why?” Her tone was gentle, soothing.
“I didn’t know why at the time.” Claire rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know how to be a mother. I didn’t have a good role model. My mother shipped me off to a convent boarding school soon after I learned to walk. I don’t know anything about raising a child, other than I know how not to do it.”
Claire squeezed her eyes, shutting out the image of another woman in her husband’s arms. “Our marriage was based on my lies.”
“Lies, plural? What else did you lie about?”
Claire bristled. “You my shrink now?”
“No. I only shrink my teenage patients. I’m your friend, and I want to help you. You seem to be forgetting that David loved—”
“And adored me.” Claire leaned back into the couch pillows.
“When we were getting to know one another, we were hiking in the Alps. David asked the normal family questions, but I remember getting very testy. I didn’t want to think about my mother.
I told him I hardly knew her and didn’t remember her ever hugging me.
We hiked along a river, and came to a waterfall, and I freaked out—”
“Wait, you don’t like the water. You won’t take a ferry. You were surprised the waterfall frightened you?”
“I don’t know. I felt disoriented. I shut down, grew quiet and moody. David didn’t raise the question again. And I certainly wasn’t going to. I guess I was afraid if I went back to France for a romantic second honeymoon, he’d convince me to start a family, and I just couldn’t risk that.”
“So, you were afraid to be a mom?”
Her vision blurred. “I…I don’t know. I never thought about it. I was always just so against becoming a mother, I didn’t question why. But, I guess I was.” She shook her head, trying to focus.
“And you never discussed your fear with him? Being afraid you won’t be a good mother is a pretty big fear. You could have talked to me.”
“You might have convinced me, too. I didn’t want to be convinced.” Claire stood and picked up the framed photo of David and herself on their wedding day. “I don’t think I was aware of being afraid while David was alive. I’ve only just admitted it to myself…and you.”
“If Luca is David’s son, he also lied.”
Longing and regret stewed in Claire’s stomach. “That doesn’t excuse my lying.”
“No. It means we’re all human.”
Cradling the photo, Claire sank back onto the couch and stared at the ceiling.
“What happened to your cell phone?”
Claire flung out her arm. “The security guards took it and my laptop when they escorted me out of the building.”
“The security guards are a conversation for another time. It’s not safe to be without a phone.
I’m going to get you one. I’ll add a new line to our account.
It’s only ten dollars a month.” Marti stood and grabbed her purse.
“In the meantime, logon to David’s computer and read his email.
” She kissed Claire’s cheek, grabbed her jacket, and left.
An ache skittered across Claire’s heart. Did David know she was afraid of having children? Afraid of being a mother?