That became a pattern in his account, Linda noticed. He told himself it was over after the fair. He told himself it was over after they met for coffee the first time back in town. He told himself it was over after a motel on Route 18 in October.
He told himself it was over when Nia called in tears saying she was late. He told himself it was over when she showed him the positive test. Each private reassurance allowed the next violation because the story in his head was never “I am building a second life.” It was always “I am handling a complication that will soon disappear.”
Nothing infuriated Linda more than that word.
Complication. As if Cam were a scheduling problem, as if Nia’s body and fear and altered future were administrative debris from David’s bad judgment, as if Linda herself were simply the wrong audience for information rather than a wife entitled to know what life she was actually living. “You didn’t have a complication,” she told him in the truck. “You had a son.”
He finally got into the passenger seat because passing families in the lot had begun glancing too long at the parked vehicle with two middle-aged white people raging quietly under yellow lights.
David sat there, cap in his hands, and admitted the thing that would reorder not only Linda’s marriage but also her understanding of the previous five years. He had not disappeared entirely from Cam’s life. He had drifted in and out, which was somehow both better and worse than full abandonment. There had been irregular visits at parks in neighboring towns, a birthday card once with twenty dollars tucked inside, two winter coats bought through Nia because David “didn’t want questions,” and a monthly transfer that began only after Nia threatened legal action when Cam was three. David had convinced himself that because he was helping “some,” he was not the sort of man who simply vanished.
“What did he call you?” Linda asked.
David looked down. “Sometimes nothing. Sometimes Dave. Lately...” His voice frayed.
“Lately Daddy. Because Nia asked if that’s what he wanted.” Linda closed her eyes. The betrayal widened.