“Please.”
Claire sat.
She kept her coat on, her bag still over her shoulder — not fully committed to staying.
She looked at me with an expression that was trying very hard to be neutral.
“Your mother and I knew each other when we were young,” I said.
“We were together for about two years.
I had to move away for work, and we lost touch.” I paused.
“I didn’t know, until today, that when she came to find me, my wife told her I had moved on.
That wasn’t true.
I never knew she had come.”
Claire’s eyes moved to Anna.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t know it was a lie until today,” Anna said.
“I believed what I was told.”
“And what does this have to do with me?” Claire said.
But her voice had changed.
Quieter.
Like some part of her already knew.
“Your mother told me something else today,” I said.
“Something I had no idea about.” I kept my voice as steady as I could.
“She told me that when she came to find me, she was pregnant.”
The room went very still.
Claire’s bag slid off her shoulder.
She didn’t reach to catch it.
“She told me your name,” I said.
“She told me you’re forty years old.
She told me you have two children.” I stopped.
“I’m sorry.
I know this is — I know this is a lot to hear from a stranger.”
“You’re not a stranger,” Claire said.
The words came out strange, almost automatic, like she hadn’t fully decided to say them.
She looked at her mother.
“You told me he didn’t want to know.
You told me he had moved on and didn’t want contact.”
“That’s what I was told,” Anna said.
Her voice was steady, but her eyes were wet.
“I believed it, Claire.
I would never have — ” She stopped.
“I’m sorry.
I should have found out for certain.
I should have tried harder.”
“Forty years,” Claire said.
Not angry.
Not yet.
Just the number, sitting there.
She looked at me again.
Really looked, the way she hadn’t allowed herself to do since she walked in.
Her eyes moved across my face slowly, and I watched the moment it landed — whatever it was she recognized.
Her hand came up and touched her own jaw, briefly, without seeming to realize she’d done it.
“I used to ask about you,” she said.
