He looked straight at her then. To his credit, she would think later—and she would hate herself a little for even granting him that much credit—to his credit, he did not look away.
"Yes," he said. "For a few seconds. Maybe more than a few. And then Ivy was on the stairs."
Renée breathed in. Out. She found that she was counting, the way she counted for patients in transition. In for four. Hold. Out for four.
"Ivy saw you."
"I don't know what she saw. I stood up. I don't think she saw—I don't know. I don't know what she saw. Lauren panicked. She made a big fuss over Ivy, put the bracelet on her, the shoes, I think she was just trying to make it seem normal. And then she grabbed her coat and she couldn't find her other shoe, it had gone under the couch, and she just left. She walked out to her car in the snow in her stockings with one shoe in her hand. And I put Ivy back to bed."
"And told her it was a not-bothering-Mommy secret."
He winced as though she had struck him. "I panicked too. I'm not proud of it."
"You asked our six-year-old daughter to keep your secret from her mother."
"I know."
"You made her your accomplice."
"I know, Ren. I know. I've thought about it every single day since."