Page 116 of The Husband Hour
“I’m packing.” He moved closer to her. “Are you okay?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Stephanie?”
To his credit, he didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about.
“Aw, shit,” he said. “Come here—sit down.” She hesitated but then let him steer her to his desk chair. He sat opposite her on the edge of his bed. “Lauren, I’m just supposed to be an observer. I’m not in the business of getting involved in other people’s lives.”
“Well, that’s convenient,” she said.
“Did Stephanie talk to you? What happened?”
“I took your files, that’s what happened. I watched the second interview.”
He shook his head. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“I bet.”
“Lauren, the last thing I wanted was to see you hurt any more than you’ve already been hurt.”
“And you think letting me live with this in my face every day, oblivious, was doing me a favor?”
She looked up at him. He reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about what Stephanie said in the interview. But on a professional level, it’s not something I would do. And on a personal level, it’s not something I wanted to do. Rory is gone. There’s no point in you feeling betrayed because there’s no way to litigate this, no resolution. It’s over.”
“Over? How is it over with Ethan in my life?”
“I don’t follow.”
“For God’s sake, Matt. Stop playing games with me!”
“Lauren, I truly don’t know what you’re talking about. I am not playing games with you.”
“What would you call it? Pretending to be my friend, sleeping with me, all the while knowing that Rory had a son with my sister?”
“What took you so long?” Beth said, ushering Howard into their bedroom and closing the door.
“Beth, it’s the middle of the summer. The turnpike was a parking lot. Why were you so vague on the phone?”
“I wasn’t vague. The word crisis isn’t vague. We have a crisis,” she said, deliberate in her use of the we. If there was ever a time they needed to be a unit, it was now.
“What’s the problem?” he asked impatiently, his hands on his hips.
She sat on the bed and picked up a framed photo from her nightstand: her mother with Stephanie and Lauren when they were little girls. She started to cry.
“Beth, for God’s sake, what is it? You said the girls are okay?” Alarmed now, he moved closer to her.
“Yes, yes.” She sniffed. “Physically, I mean. But the rest…I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Just out with it,” he said.
“They had a terrible argument earlier, and I tried to intervene and then Lauren said…she said…”
Howard sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. “Beth, you can’t force those two to be best friends. Maybe not even friends. Haven’t I been trying to tell you this?”
She shook her head, pressing her fingers to her temple. “Lauren said that Rory is Ethan’s father.”
Howard shrank away from her.
Beth hated to tell him, hated for him to know what a terrible, unforgivable sin Stephanie had committed. She wished that she didn’t know. But when she looked at his face, she didn’t see shock or dismay…not even a little surprise.
