Daniel glanced at Rachel. "Maybe you should—"
"I'll stay," Rachel said. Soft, firm. "If she's going to hear it, she should hear it with me in the room. I'm not a rumor."
Laura almost thanked her for that. Almost.
Daniel exhaled. "His name is Oliver. He's four months old. He's Chris Ellison's son."
The name landed like a stone in still water. Chris. Daniel's oldest friend—college roommate, best man, the man who had taught Ethan to skip stones at Deep Creek Lake and who sent ridiculous Christmas cards with his own face photoshopped onto movie posters. Chris, who had called Laura once during her mother's decline to ask if Daniel was eating enough. Chris, who lived with his wife, Mara, in Baltimore, last Laura knew.
"Chris and Mara," Laura said slowly. "Where are they?"
Daniel's throat moved. "They're gone, Laura. June. Both of them. A truck crossed the median on 95. Mara died at the scene. Chris two days later at Shock Trauma."
Laura's hand found the back of the armchair. The baby monitor hummed, indifferent. She had been in another state in June, sitting beside a hospital bed while machines counted her mother's breaths, and the news of other people's disasters had arrived as texts she barely absorbed. She remembered something—Daniel's voice on the phone, strained, saying Chris had been in an accident—and then the conversation dissolving because a nurse needed signatures and her mother had woken confused.
"You told me he was hurt," she whispered. "You didn't tell me he died."