Chapter 2

Half of Ada's face had gone red.

"Oh! Are you okay?"

Claude panicked at once, pulling out a handkerchief to press against her cheek.

I noticed the handkerchief. It was Ada's.

Claude never even carried tissues when he went out, let alone a handkerchief.

I recognized it because it had started as a sample from a collaboration between my company and a mill up in Massachusetts. Ada and I had gotten one each.

During the stretch when my depression triggered acid reflux, she'd wiped my tears with that same handkerchief.

"Don't be scared, Wall. I'll always be with you."

Cold shook through my whole body, and then, out of nowhere, I laughed.

Seeing it, everyone around stepped back, not daring to come near.

I picked up a potted plant beside me and hurled it at their feet.

Ada shrank back, pulling Claude with her.

I stamped down on the pink bouquets, one after another, until the pulp ran out of them.

Every bunch of flowers hid a little note. I love you.

Ada would stay by me without conditions, dote on me.

But she rarely said she loved me. She was always too shy for it.

Only on the day we said our vows, red all the way to her neck, when I took her hand and coaxed her, did she say it once.

And on the day my illness drove me out onto the balcony, she'd come running in, her face wet with tears.

"Wallace, I love you. Please don't go, all right?"

"The baby, anyone else, none of them matter as much as you. All I want is you."

So after I was discharged, she was the first to notice everything that was wrong with me.

Her mother said I was sick, told her to divorce me.

Ada waited for me to wake, then said it plainly, without shame.

"He's not a madman. I will never divorce him, not in this life."

I'd always thought that was the finest love she had to give, even if it went unspoken.

"Are you done making a scene?"

But right now, Ada's eyes held nothing but deep disappointment and exhaustion.

She looked at me standing in the middle of the wreckage, my face streaked with tears and fright.

The way you'd look at an actual madman.

All at once it all felt pointless, and there was no one behind me now, holding me steady, telling me to be careful, not to hurt myself.

Claude finally found his opening.

"You… do you want to take your medicine first?"

"Or maybe I should just go. I, I know I'm in the way here."

By the end of it his eyes had gone glassy, his voice catching.

Ada gripped his wrist, the concern in her eyes almost spilling over.

Right then the nanny came over, holding the crying baby.

"Miss Sanchez, the baby's crying again!"

On instinct I reached out to take him, but Ada pushed me away.

"Go take your medicine first."

The baby went to Claude, and the two of them, one rocking him gently, one wiping his tears, looked like nothing so much as a well-matched husband and wife.

And I was the outsider.

For no reason I could name, I felt a shameful, cowardly urge to run.

As if the whole world were watching me, accusing me of being an unfit father.

Before long the baby really did stop crying.

He blew bubbles, and even Claude laughed.

"Thank you, baby. Are you cheering up Claude's baby?"

The words were barely out before Claude caught himself, glancing up at me, wary.

"I'm sorry, Wall, I didn't mean anything by that…"

"You don't have to apologize."

The smile faded from Ada's eyes, and she gave me another of those weary looks.

"You'd make a better father than some people."

I finally drew back the hand I'd reached out for my son.

A year ago Ada struggled twelve hours on the operating table, and I'd stayed right there in the delivery room, watching the blood pour out.

Even when the sight of it made me faint, I never left her side.

And in the end, Claude, a man who had nothing to do with any of it, was somehow the better fit.

I walked to the front door alongside Claude and the baby in his arms.

Outside, cold rain drifted down.

Ada's car was parked out front, and Claude climbed into the passenger seat with the baby.

"Catch a ride home. I've got the baby's checkup booked."

Ada dropped that line and drove off.

She didn't see Claude smile at me. She didn't see that I had no umbrella either.

I looked down at the ride app on my phone. The nearest driver was fifty minutes out.

I canceled the request and stepped out into the rain.

By the time I got home I was soaked through, but I couldn't summon the will to dry off.

On my phone, Claude had posted to his feed.

Just a few plain words. Taking the baby for a checkup.

He'd taken a photo of Ada from behind.

The first like was from Ada's younger sister, the second from my mother-in-law.

The sister said the baby was cute, then asked.

"Have you blocked Wallace yet? Don't let him see this. If he finds out you never went abroad last year, he'll definitely lose it."

Sure enough, the next second the post was gone.

I stared at the black screen, at the reflection of a man with lips gone bloodless, and biting down on that lip, I twisted the handle of the study door.