His mouth moved, but nothing came out.
“I asked you to talk. I asked you to get help. I can’t keep raising our daughter in a house where I’m afraid to ask why my husband won’t touch me.”
“They’re divorce papers.”
He sat down.
“Do you mean it?”
I pulled out the chair opposite him.
“You keep asking me for time. You never tell me what I’m waiting for.”
“Do you mean it?”
He looked at the envelope.
I waited for anger. An explanation. A plea.
He pressed his palms against his knees.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Upstairs, I brushed my teeth with the tap running so he wouldn’t hear me crying.
I waited.
At two in the morning, his side of the bed was empty.
Then I heard his voice through the monitor.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
I reached for the screen.
I heard his voice
Ryan sat on the nursery floor.
His face was wet, and Lily’s hand lay curled around his finger through the crib bars.
“I wish things were different.”
I got up.
The hallway carpet felt cold beneath my feet. Near the nursery door, I heard him again.
I got up.
“I have to leave before your mommy finds out.”
I pushed the door open.
“Finds out what?”
He turned so sharply that Lily stirred.
I waited while he eased his finger from her hand.
“I have to leave.”
“What have you done?”
He looked at our daughter, then back at me.
“My mother told me something.”
“What?”
“What have you done?”
“She said you told her Lily might not be mine.”
The room seemed to go very still.
“I never said that.”
“I know.” He swallowed. “I had a paternity test done.”
“I know.”
I gripped the doorframe.
“When?”
“The result came today. She’s mine.”
I looked at Lily, sleeping with one foot pressed against the crib bars.
“You tested our baby?”
“When?”
“Yes.”
“And this is why you haven’t been able to look at me?”
He nodded.
“For three months?”
“I didn’t believe her at first.”
“For three months?”
“But you believed her enough.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“You believed her.”
“No. Answer that. You watched me ask what I’d done wrong. Why didn’t you just ask?”
“She said you’d told her in confidence. That you were frightened and needed time to tell me yourself.”
“I was asking you what was wrong.”
“I know. She kept saying you’d deny it if I cornered you.”
“Answer that.”
“You discussed it with her while I begged you to talk to me?”
He looked down. “Yes.”
“Why did you let her decide that?”
“Because if you said no, I’d have had to decide which of you I believed.”
“And leaving me like this was easier?”
“Yes.”
His face crumpled.
“At first I thought if I ignored it, I’d stop thinking about it. Then I started noticing stupid things. You turning your phone over. Being too tired to talk.”
“The things you were doing to me.”
“I know.”
His face crumpled.
Lily shifted.
We both went quiet until she settled.
“After a while,” he said, “telling you meant admitting how long I’d been thinking it. Every time you asked what was wrong, I made it worse. I kept waiting until I could tell you without losing you.”
“So you ordered a test.”
Lily shifted.
“I thought the result would make it stop. Then it came, and there wasn’t anything left to blame you for. Just what I’d done.”
I pressed my knuckles against my mouth.
“And when I gave you the papers?”
“I thought you were already done. I couldn’t tell you this too.”
“Just what I’d done.”
“You were going to leave me with the questions.”
He lowered his head.
“Yes.”
I pictured myself years from now, still wondering when he’d stopped loving me. Wondering whether I’d asked too much after Lily was born.
“You were going to leave.”
He’d been willing to let me carry that.
“You knew I’d blame myself.”
He nodded and wiped his face.
“Even with those papers on the table, I was waiting for you to give me a reason to stay.”
“I’m sorry, Hannah.”
