Chapter 23 Declan
Declan
Igo to meet Ronan alone.
She wanted to come. I told her no. Not gently, not with an explanation.
Just no. This is not her conversation. This is between two men who have been each other's constants for thirty years, and one of them has been sleeping with the other's daughter, and that man is going to stand in that kitchen and say it out loud and he's going to do it alone.
She looked at me. Read my face. Decided not to fight it.
I drive to Ronan's. Twenty-two minutes. I know the route the way I know my own address. Every turn. Every light. I've driven it a thousand times. Sunday dinners. Poker nights. The night Claire died.
Then I get out and walk to his door and knock.
He opens it and I know. He knows.
"Come in," he says.
Not warm. Not cold. The voice of a man who's been waiting for someone to arrive and explain something.
The kitchen. Same kitchen. The smell of thirty years of Sunday evenings baked into the walls. The chair I've sat in a thousand times. The counter where his daughter stood three weeks ago with a glass of wine.
He sits at the table. I sit across from him. Four feet apart. The widest distance this table has ever held.
"How long," he says.
"Six weeks."
He nods. Slowly. Setting the number down.
"Six weeks." A pause. "My daughter."
"Yes."
"My daughter, Declan."
"Yes."
"My twenty-one-year-old daughter."
I don't flinch. I don't look away. He deserves my face for this.
"Yes."
Long silence. He's looking at me the way I've seen him look at people who've disappointed him in ways he didn't think were possible. Ronan is a warm man. Patient. The disappointment on his face is worse than anger because it's quiet and it's real and I put it there.
"You've been in my house," he says. "Every Sunday. Sitting in that chair. Eating my food. Shaking my hand at the door." His voice is even. Controlled. Ronan doesn't raise his voice. Never has. "How many Sundays, Dec."
"Three."
"Three Sundays you sat across from me knowing."
"Yes."
"And before that. The watching."
"Seven months. Online. Before I knew it was her."
"Seven months." Weighing it. "You watched my daughter online for seven months."
"I didn't know it was her."
"But you knew eventually."
"Since the dress. Since May."
"May." His hands are flat on the table. "You've been sitting at my table since May.
And you've been—" He stops. Closes his eyes.
Opens them. "She was a child in this house, Declan.
" His voice is different now. Lower. The voice of a father, not a friend.
"She sat on your lap at Christmas. You picked her up from school when I couldn't. When did she stop being a child to you. "
The question I knew was coming. The one that has no clean answer.
"I don't know," I say. "I watched a stranger online for months. She was sharp and talented and I couldn't stop. And then I found out who she was and I should have stopped and I didn't."
"Because you couldn't or because you chose not to."
"Both. I don't know. Both."
"I trusted you," he says. Quieter now. Worse. "She used to fall asleep on your shoulder at barbecues and I thought that was safe. I thought you were safe."
Something in my chest breaks. Quietly. No sound.
I've been managing information for months. Half-truths. Controlled versions. The whole architecture of this secret was built on giving people partial information. I'm done.
"There's more," I say.
His eyes come to mine. Wary.
"She's pregnant."
Silence.
The longest silence in thirty years of friendship. The clock on the wall that I've never heard before and hear now, ticking. The chair where Claire used to sit before she died and where Billie sits on Sundays.
He doesn't move. His hands on the table. His face still.
I wait. However long it takes. I owe him every second.
A minute. Maybe longer.
"Get out of my house," he says.
Quiet. Flat. Not a shout. Something past anger. The voice of a man who has reached the end of what he can hold in one room with the person who put it there.
"Ronan—"
"Get out of my house, Dec."
I stand up. Push the chair in. His face. Thirty years of my life in one man's face.
"I'm sorry," I say.
He doesn't answer. He's looking at the table.
I leave.