Those papers were not work documents.
I felt cold.
“How long?”
“He knew before the babies were born.”
“You knew?”
Carol nodded.
I stood so quickly that my chair scraped across the floor.
“You knew?”
“Bianca…”
“When?”
“March.”
I stared at her.
“He asked me to meet him at a diner,” she said. “He told me there, in a booth, over coffee neither of us drank.”
Suddenly, I remembered every look she had given him.
Every silence.
“What did he say?”
Carol wiped her cheek.
“He said, ‘Don’t tell her. She gets nine months of being happy. That’s the whole deal.'”
Anger came before grief.
“He had no right.”
“I know.”
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
“I was his wife.”
“I know, Bianca.”
“I should have known!”
My voice rose enough that Owen looked up from the floor.
Carol did not defend herself.
“I wanted to tell you,” she said. “More times than I can count.”
