A man who had lied his wife into grief and his lover into motherhood wanted applause for scheduling a confession.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
Elise looked startled. “The baby?”
“Yes.”
“Lily.”
Of course.
Something delicate. Something pure.
“Lily Marlowe?”
She hesitated. “Lily Grace Hayes.”
There it was again. My last name, placed gently on a child I had not known existed.
I pulled the chair closer and sat down because my knees had begun to feel unreliable.
“How long?” I asked.
Elise wiped her face with the back of her hand. She looked younger now. Not like a mistress from a cheap story. Like a woman who had been handed a script and told it was love.
“Two years,” she said.
My marriage had become haunted two years ago. I saw it suddenly: Grant’s longer trips, his new phone passcode, the sudden interest in “client dinners,” the gym membership across town, the cologne I did not buy. The night he came home smelling faintly of baby powder and said he had been in Denver.
“Where did you meet him?”
“A conference. I’m a neonatal physical therapist. He was presenting some device line. He was charming.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “I guess you know that.”
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