After the samples were done, Linda asked if she and Nia could speak alone.
The lawyers stepped out. Marcy took Cam to the receptionist for juice and crackers. David started to object, then stopped when both women turned toward him with such synchronized irritation that even he recognized the limits of his relevance. When the door closed, Linda and Nia sat across from one another at the conference table while August light pushed through cheap vertical blinds.
“I need to know two things first,” Linda said.
Nia nodded. “Ask.” Linda folded her hands so they would not shake. “Did you know the full truth before you got pregnant?” Nia answered immediately. “No.
I knew there was a wife. I believed there was a separation. By the time I understood he was lying, I was already in my second trimester and too embarrassed to tell people how stupid I’d been.” Linda swallowed and asked the second question. “After you knew the truth, why keep letting him come around?”
Nia looked tired all over again.
“Because he was his father,” she said, with a bluntness that did not seek sympathy. “Because when you’ve got a newborn and rent and no family money and a body that doesn’t feel like your own anymore, ideals get expensive fast. Because some part of me thought if he showed up enough, maybe he would become the person he kept swearing he wanted to be. And because Cam deserved at least the possibility of a father, even if the father turned out to be mostly made of maybe.”
Linda sat back.
There were things to resent in that answer. Nia had made choices that affected Linda without her knowledge. She had accepted secrecy long after discovering deceit. She had, in effect, colluded with the continued concealment of a child from his father’s wife.