"Caleb had been gone for months." "He got engaged. I saw it online that night." The detail sounded so pathetic against the scale of what followed that Ava nearly smiled.
Not because it was funny, but because she could not believe her sister was placing a social media announcement beside the destruction of a marriage as if one naturally explained the other. "So your ex got engaged," Ava said slowly, "and that led you to sleep with my husband?" Lily flinched. "No. I didn't say it like that."
"There is no good way to say it." Ryan leaned forward. "It was my fault." Ava looked at him. "Did she force you?"
"No." "Then congratulations. It was both your fault." He lowered his head. The silence that followed gave Ava too much room to remember.
That weekend in Baltimore, she had called Ryan from her hotel room at eleven twenty-three on Saturday night. She knew the exact time because she had checked the clock before calling, afraid she might wake him. He answered on the fourth ring and sounded distracted. Ava asked what he was doing. Watching a movie, he said.
What movie? Some thriller. I wasn't really paying attention. She had teased him for starting a movie without her. He told her he missed her.
They spoke for seven minutes. At the end of the call, Ava said, "Love you." Ryan replied, "Love you too." Now she looked across the table at him. "Was she here when I called you from Baltimore?"
Ryan went motionless. Lily inhaled sharply. Ava's stomach turned. "She was." "Ava—" "Was she in this house?"
Ryan rubbed both hands over his face. "Yes." Ava's chair moved backward an inch as though her body had recoiled independently. "Where?" Neither answered.
"Where was my sister while you were telling me you loved me?" Ryan looked toward the floor. The answer arrived without words. Ava's gaze traveled across the dining room toward the open hallway. The staircase curved upward beyond it, elegant and pale beneath the wall sconces.
At the top of those stairs was the bedroom she shared with Ryan. Her breath caught. "No," Lily said quickly. "Not your room." Ava turned to her.
"It wasn't your room," Lily repeated, crying harder. "I swear." The fact that Lily thought this distinction might help made something hot move through Ava's chest. "Oh, thank God. What a relief."
"I know it doesn't make it better." "Then stop offering me tiny pieces of decency like I should be grateful you saved them." Lily pressed both hands against her face. Ryan said, "It happened in the guest room." Ava stared at him.
The guest room. The pale neutral room they had joked might someday become a nursery. For months, Ava had measured her life in cycles and appointments, trying not to turn hope into obsession. She had stood in that doorway more than once and imagined a crib against the far wall. Ryan knew that.
He had stood beside her and imagined it too. Now Lily was pregnant. By him. Ava's hand tightened around the back of her chair until her knuckles whitened. "You chose that room."