Yet the arrangement was so impossible that her mind refused to accept the sentence they formed. She turned slowly toward her husband. "Ryan?" He looked at her. That was all it took.
He did not ask what Lily meant. He did not laugh in disbelief. He did not become angry at the accusation or demand that Lily take it back. His face collapsed into the exact expression Ava had feared without knowing she feared it: guilt, naked and immediate. "Ava, listen to me."
The chair scraped violently against the hardwood as she stood. "My own sister?" Ryan rose halfway, palms open. "I can explain." "Don't stand up."
He froze. Lily began crying openly. "I'm sorry." Ava looked at her sister and felt something inside herself divide. One half still saw the little girl with missing front teeth who used to crawl into Ava's bed during thunderstorms.
The other saw a twenty-three-year-old woman who had sat at Ava's table, slept in Ava's guest room, accepted Ava's protection, and carried Ava's husband's child. Ryan tried again. "I can explain." Ava looked at him with such disgust that he stopped before taking another breath. "You don't betray your wife with her own sister and call that an explanation."
No one spoke. The candle nearest Ava flickered as air from the heating vent moved through the room. A drop of wax ran down its side, slow and bright, and for some irrational reason Ava watched it reach the silver holder. Her body had entered a strange state in which tiny details appeared with painful precision while enormous facts remained unreal. She looked at Ryan's wedding ring.
Then she looked at Lily's stomach. "How long?" she asked. Ryan's face tightened. "Ava—" "How long?" Lily whispered, "Please don't make me—" "You already made me."
Ava's voice broke for the first time. She hated that both of them heard it. "You made me part of this every time you walked into my house and pretended nothing had happened. So how long?" Ryan sat back down slowly.
"It wasn't... it wasn't a relationship." Ava laughed once, a sound with no humor in it. "Oh, good. That's much better." "That's not what I mean."
"Then use words carefully, Ryan. You seem to have had months to think about them." Lily wiped her cheeks. "It started in May." Ava turned toward her.
May. Five months earlier. The month Ava had spent two consecutive weeks handling a hotel launch in Center City, coming home late and waking before sunrise. The month Lily had finished moving into her apartment. The month Ryan had told Ava, more than once, that he worried Lily was not doing well after the breakup.
Ava sat down again because her knees suddenly felt unreliable. "May when?" Lily stared at the table. "The weekend you were in Baltimore for the hospitality conference." Ava knew the weekend immediately.
She had texted Ryan photographs from the conference ballroom because the lighting installation had malfunctioned and she knew he would appreciate the engineering disaster. He had replied with a picture of their dog, Murphy, asleep on Ava's side of the bed. She had thought he was alone. "She came over because her car wouldn't start," Ryan said quickly, as if context could reduce the meaning of the date. "It was late.
She called me because you were busy, and I went to help. The battery was dead, so I drove her back here while we waited for roadside assistance." Ava closed her eyes briefly. "And then?" Ryan said nothing.
Lily did. "I was upset." Ava opened her eyes. "About what?" "Caleb."