Chapter 7 The Photograph in the Drawer
POV MARA QUINN
The photograph should have stayed buried under warranty papers.
Mara was cleaning Deke's office desk when Rowan called from the garage.
"Bottom left drawer."
"I looked."
"Then you looked like a man."
Rowan shouted something rude.
Mara smiled and opened the drawer herself.
Folders. Old pens. A broken ruler. A photograph face down.
She picked it up.
Seventeen-year-old memory disguised as glossy paper.
Mara at twenty-eight, sitting on the edge of an exam table in a clinic gown. One hand covered her mouth. The other held an ultrasound print so early it looked like weather.
Her mother had taken the photo.
Mara had forgotten Deke ever saw a copy.
"Found it?" Cole asked from the doorway.
She turned too fast.
His gaze dropped to the photograph.
Mara's first instinct was to hide it.
She did not.
He came no closer.
"Is that..."
"Yes."
His face changed.
The photo held a date in the corner.
OCT 03 2007.
He read it.
Mara could see the arithmetic happen.
"How far?"
"Eight weeks."
Cole gripped the doorframe.
"You knew before I left?"
"No. I found out eleven days after."
He looked down.
Mara hated the instinct to soften what came next.
She did not.
"I threw up every morning for four months. I worked until two weeks before Rowan was born. Bonnie drove me to the hospital because my water broke in the shop."
Cole closed his eyes.
"I should have been there."
"Yes."
His eyes opened.
No defense.
No Deke.
No Lena.
Just yes.
Mara set the photograph on the desk.
"Why did Deke have this?"
"I don't know."
Cole's voice was rough.
"Did you send it?"
"No."
"My mother might have. She hated Deke by then."
"Reasonable."
Mara looked at him.
"You don't get to agree with that like you're outside the indictment."
"I'm not."
The anger in her loosened one notch.
Not forgiveness.
Space.
POV COLE MERCER
Cole walked to the river because the garage walls had become too close.
Eight weeks.
Eleven days after he left.
He had spent nineteen years imagining Mara's life without him.
He had never imagined an infant.
That failure belonged to him too.
His phone rang.
Arizona.
Lena Cross.
He stared at the screen.
They had not spoken in nearly a year.
He answered.
"Lena."
"I heard about Deke."
Ironvale still traveled faster than cell service.
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"Thanks."
A pause.
Then, "You're there."
"Yes."
"With Mara?"
"Yes."
Lena exhaled.
"I need to come."
Cole stopped walking.
"No."
"Not for you."
"I didn't think it was."
"Deke mailed me something three months ago. Told me not to open it unless he died."
Cole looked back toward the garage.
"What is it?"
"Letters. Copies, I think. One envelope has Mara's name."
His stomach tightened.
"Bring them."
"I will."
"Lena."
"What?"
"Mara knows the affair was six weeks."
Silence.
"From you?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"She knows Rowan is mine."
Lena did not speak for several seconds.
"Rowan?"
"My daughter."
"Oh, Cole."
He closed his eyes.
"Don't."
"I'm not pitying you."
"Good."
"I am thinking about how much damage people can do while believing silence is cleaner."
Cole looked at the Ash River moving under the bridge.
"Come Friday."
"I'll be there."
The call ended.
When Cole returned to the garage, Mara was putting the ultrasound photograph into a new envelope.
He stood beside the desk.
"Lena is coming Friday."
Mara froze.
He told her why.
She listened.
When he finished, Mara sealed the envelope.
"The woman you ran away with has my mail."
Cole flinched.
Mara saw it.
"That sentence bother you?"
"Yes."
"Good."
She put the photograph in her bag.
"So does mine."
POV MARA QUINN
Lena's arrival sat on the calendar all week.
Mara hated that a woman she had not seen in nineteen years could still rearrange the temperature of a room before entering it.
On Thursday, she called Bonnie.
"Tell me one thing that has nothing to do with Cole."
Bonnie said, "My grandson put a spoon in the toilet."
"Excellent."
For ten minutes they discussed plumbing.
It helped.