The Distance Between Us

Claire sent thirty-seven screenshots.

I read every one.

The first was dated nine days after Ethan arrived in Zurich.

CLAIRE: You should go home after Friday's consultation.

ETHAN: Rachel understands.

CLAIRE: Understanding doesn't mean she doesn't need you.

ETHAN: Her mom is there. She's fine.

My mother had been in Arizona that week.

The next message was three weeks later.

CLAIRE: Did you book your flight?

ETHAN: Not yet.

CLAIRE: Ethan.

ETHAN: Don't start.

CLAIRE: Your wife is pregnant.

ETHAN: Five months from delivery. She has doctors. You don't.

I stopped reading and put the phone face down.

Natalie sat across from me in the hospital family lounge.

"Do you want me to finish them?"

"No."

"You don't have to do this all at once."

"I spent six months not knowing. I can survive ten more minutes of knowing."

I picked up the phone again.

The messages after the kiss were worse because Claire had become direct.

CLAIRE: What happened cannot happen again.

ETHAN: I know.

CLAIRE: You need to call Rachel and tell her you're coming home.

ETHAN: I can't go back tonight and pretend everything is normal.

CLAIRE: Then don't pretend. Tell the truth.

ETHAN: You don't understand.

CLAIRE: I understand you're hiding here.

I read that line three times.

Hiding here.

The final group was from the period after Claire's discharge.

CLAIRE: I have home care. You can leave.

ETHAN: I need a few days.

CLAIRE: For what?

ETHAN: To figure things out.

CLAIRE: Rachel thinks you're still here because of me, doesn't she?

There was no reply for two hours.

Then Ethan had written:

ETHAN: It's complicated.

Natalie watched my face.

"What?"

I handed her the phone.

She read the exchange and swore under her breath.

"He used her illness as cover."

"After she didn't need him anymore."

"For seven weeks."

"Almost seven."

A terrible calm settled over me.

The uncertainty had been cruel, but certainty was clean.

Ethan had not simply chosen Claire over me once. He had kept choosing distance after the original excuse disappeared.

Avery joined us by video an hour later.

"These are relevant," she said. "Not because a court is going to conduct a moral trial of your marriage, but because they may speak to credibility and marital spending. Preserve the originals if possible."

"Claire says she'll email them directly."

"Good."

"I want to know how much money he spent in Switzerland. All of it."

"We will request complete disclosure."

"And I want to know whether he used company money."

Avery lifted one eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because he told Claire the treatment payment came through business contacts. It didn't. If he's lying in both directions, I want to know what else he's covering."

"Reasonable. Let me handle the requests."

When Ethan came to the NICU that evening, I was doing skin-to-skin care with Noah for the first time.

The nurse had tucked my son against my chest beneath a blanket. He felt impossibly light and astonishingly real.

Ethan stopped at the doorway.

"Wow."

I looked down at Noah.

"His oxygen numbers improve when he's held."

"Can I—"

"Tomorrow. The nurse said we can try with you tomorrow."

He nodded quickly.

"Okay."

He stood there watching us, and for a moment I saw grief in his face so naked that I almost reached for him out of habit.

Then my phone lit up on the chair.

Claire Bennett.

Email sent. Originals attached.

Ethan saw the name.

His face changed.

"She's talking to you?"

"Yes."

"Rachel, be careful."

I stared at him.

"With Claire?"

"You don't know what state she's in."

"She seems clearer than either of us has been."

"What did she tell you?"

"That she asked you to go home in the second week. That you told her my mother was living with me. That after you kissed her, she told you to come back and face your marriage. That she was discharged seven weeks ago."

The monitor beside Noah continued its steady rhythm.

Ethan said nothing.

"Is any of that false?"

"No."

"Then why did you warn me about her?"

"Because she doesn't know everything."

"Neither did I. Apparently that was your preferred arrangement."

He looked at Noah rather than me.

"I was ashamed after the kiss."

"So you stayed near the woman you kissed and away from your pregnant wife."

"I didn't know how to come home."

The sentence was so absurd I almost missed the truth inside it.