She did not sleep in the bed she shared with Ethan. Instead she took a blanket to the guest room and lay awake until dawn, replaying the reveal in fragments. Vanessa's red dress. Ethan's hand on the light switch. Margaret's face.
The words six months. The sentence about trying for a baby. The invention of a brother who did not exist.
Every memory of the last half year became newly unstable. A business trip was no longer a business trip until proven otherwise. A late meeting became a possible dinner with Vanessa. A shower immediately after coming home became evidence Claire had not understood at the time. She hated what betrayal did to memory. It turned the past into a crime scene and forced the injured person to become its investigator.
At seven fifteen the next morning, Claire's phone buzzed. Ethan had sent a message.
I am at Mom and Dad's. I won't come over without asking. I know sorry is useless right now, but I am sorry. I will answer anything you ask. I won't lie again.
Claire read it twice and put the phone facedown. Ten minutes later another message arrived, this one from Vanessa.
You do not owe me an answer. I ended things with Ethan last night. I blocked him after I got home. I know that doesn't undo my part. If you ever want to know what he told me or when things happened, I will tell you the truth.
Claire stared at that message longer. She did not respond to either of them.
By noon, the house had become unbearable. Brooke made coffee, opened windows, and took down the HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner only after Claire asked her to. They left the balloons until afternoon because neither had the energy to chase strings around the ceiling. The unopened gifts remained on the console table.
The watch sat by itself. Claire eventually picked it up and read the engraving again. Still choosing you.
She considered throwing it away. Instead she placed it inside the box and put the box in the back of a kitchen drawer. She did not know why. Perhaps she wanted evidence of the person she had been twenty-four hours earlier, a woman who believed choosing someone repeatedly was enough to make a marriage safe.
On Sunday afternoon, Ethan asked whether he could come by for clothes and to talk. Claire told him he could come at three and that Mason would be present. Ethan did not object.
He arrived looking as though he had slept badly. He wore jeans and a gray sweatshirt Claire had given him the previous Christmas. The ordinariness of his appearance offended her. She wanted betrayal to leave visible marks on the person who caused it.
Mason sat in the kitchen but stayed within hearing distance. Claire and Ethan remained in the living room where the party had collapsed. The cake was gone. The floor was clean. A faint caramel smell remained near the baseboard.
Ethan sat on the edge of the sofa. Claire took the armchair across from him. "I wrote everything down," he said. He placed a folded stack of paper on the coffee table.
Claire looked at it but did not touch it. "Everything?"
"Dates I remember. Trips. Times I lied about where I was. Money I spent."