The Distance Between Us

Claire called the next morning.

I almost declined the number because it began with a Swiss country code. Then I remembered how many months of my marriage had begun with Switzerland, and I answered.

"Hello?"

A woman took a careful breath.

"Rachel, it's Claire Bennett."

I looked through the NICU window at Noah sleeping beneath blue light for jaundice.

"I know."

"I don't expect you to want to speak to me."

"Then why are you calling?"

"Because Ethan told me what he admitted."

My hand tightened around the phone.

"Which admission? There are several now."

Claire was quiet.

"The kiss."

"Did he tell you I found the apartment too?"

"Yes."

"And the fifty thousand dollars?"

Another pause.

"I didn't know that came from a joint account."

"You accepted fifty thousand dollars without asking where it came from?"

"The clinic told me a foundation payment had been arranged. Ethan said he had handled it through his company contacts."

I laughed softly.

"Of course he did."

"Rachel, I am not asking you to forgive me."

"Good."

"But there are things you should know."

"Then say them."

Her voice sounded weaker than I remembered, but not helpless.

"I asked him to go home. More than once."

I closed my eyes.

"When?"

"The second week. Again after my first procedure. Again after I was moved to outpatient treatment."

"He told me you had nobody."

"I had no family there. That part was true. But I had a patient advocate, nurses, a social worker, and later a home-care service. I was frightened. I was grateful he came. I did not expect him to stay for months."

My anger shifted direction so quickly it made me dizzy.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"At first, I thought you knew everything."

"Everything?"

"He said you understood why he needed to stay."

"I understood one week."

"I learned that later."

I stared at Noah's incubator.

"What else did he say?"

Claire hesitated.

"He said you were having an easy pregnancy. He said your mother was staying with you."

I opened my eyes.

"My mother lives in Arizona. She visited twice."

"I know that now."

"He said she was staying with me?"

"Yes. He said you had support and wanted him to focus on getting me through treatment."

The lie was so specific that it hurt differently.

Ethan had not merely misunderstood my silence.

He had furnished it.

"Did he say we were separated?"

"No."

That answer surprised me.

"Did he say we were unhappy?"

"Not exactly."

"Claire."

"He said things had been distant before he left. He said the pregnancy had happened sooner than expected and you were both adjusting."

"We had been trying for eight months."

She inhaled.

"I didn't know that."

"What happened the night of the kiss?"

Her voice dropped.

"I got scan results that suggested the treatment wasn't working. I panicked. Ethan brought me to the apartment because the hospital residence felt unbearable. We drank wine. I cried. He held me. Then he kissed me."

"And you stopped him."

"Immediately."

"Why?"

"Because he was married. Because you were pregnant. Because I was sick, not stupid."

The answer was blunt enough to feel true.

"Did you ever want him back?"

She was silent for several seconds.

"Part of me wanted the version of him I remembered from years ago. But wanting a memory and acting on it are different things."

"Did you tell him that?"

"After the kiss, yes. I told him if he was unhappy, he needed to go home and deal with his marriage. He got angry."

"At you?"

"At himself, mostly. Maybe at me for saying it aloud."

I leaned against the wall.

"Why did he stay after that?"

"That's what I never understood."

Noah shifted beneath the light. A nurse checked his monitor and smiled at me through the glass.

"Claire, when were you discharged from active treatment?"

Her answer came slowly.

"Seven weeks ago."

I went cold.

Seven weeks.

Ethan had told me Claire remained too unstable for him to leave until three days before Noah's birth.

"What?" she asked.

"He told me you were still in intensive treatment."

"No. I had follow-up appointments, but I was living independently by then."

"And Ethan?"

"Still in Zurich."

"Why?"

"He said he needed to finish some work remotely before returning."

I stared at the phone.

"He wasn't working. His partners thought he was on family leave."

Claire whispered something I could not make out.

"What did you say?"

"I said, oh God."

Neither of us spoke for a moment.

Then Claire said, "Rachel, I have messages."

"What kind?"

"Messages where I told him to go home. Messages where he said you were fine. Messages after the kiss."

"Why are you offering them to me?"

"Because I participated in something that hurt you, even if I didn't know the whole truth. And because if he is telling you a different story now, you deserve the record."

I looked at Noah.

Avery's words returned to me.