He stared at his hands. “I don’t know.”
That was probably the truest thing he had said all day.
“I thought if I waited long enough, something would make the decision for me.”
You laughed once, bitter and stunned. “Well. It did.”
His face crumpled then. Not theatrically. Not manipulatively. Just the plain ugly collapse of a man who had finally run out of lies sturdy enough to stand on.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Stop saying that as if intent is magic,” you said. “Everyone who detonates a family says they never wanted anyone to get hit by the debris.”
He covered his face with both hands.
For several minutes, the only sound in the room was his breathing and the ticking of the old wall clock in the hallway. Martin’s clock. The one that ran a minute fast because he claimed it kept the house alert.
At last you asked the question you had been circling since morning.
“Does Laura know anything?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“She knows I’ve been distant. We’ve been fighting more. She asked if there was someone else once, a few months ago. I said no.”
Of course he had.
You looked toward the kitchen. The kettle sat on the stove where you had left it, untouched. How many mornings had Laura lived beside this man and felt some shape in the air without having proof? How many times had she looked at his back and mistaken secrecy for stress?
“What are you going to do?” you asked.
Michael lowered his hands.
This time, when he answered, the voice that came out did not belong to a panicked child. It belonged to a grown man standing at the edge of the crater he had made.
“I’m going to tell her.”
You held his gaze. “Today.”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
He hesitated.
Your expression must have changed because he immediately added, “Yes. Everything.”
Including the part about Daniel? Including the part about you?
His face went blank with horror.
“No,” he said. “Mom, please.”
