“I know what you told her,” I interrupted, still smiling. “That I'm your sister? An unstable ex? A roommate from years ago? Come on, Ethan. I'd love to hear which version you sold her myself.”
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
And that's when I noticed the envelope in his hand. Thick. Cream-colored. With a fragment of a medical logo poking out the top.
A moment later I saw an identical envelope in her handbag.
My stomach clenched so hard I could barely breathe.
This was no ordinary affair.
I looked at both envelopes, then at the panic written on Ethan's face, and suddenly all the lies of the past two years fell into place like pieces of a puzzle I had refused to see before. The late “business trips.” The hushed phone calls. The way he cut off every attempt to talk about starting a family. The constant putting it off, the eternal “not now,” “this isn't the right moment,” “we have to wait a little longer.”
I looked him straight in the eye and said quietly, so only he could hear:
“Tell me right now… why do you both have documents from a fertility clinic with your names on them?”
His lips parted.
The girl let out a broken, choked breath.
And Ethan only said:
“Claire, not here.”
By then I already knew. The truth would be worse than anything I had managed to imagine.
