Chapter 12 - Megan Asked the Question Nobody Else Would
Megan flew in from Seattle.
The first time she saw Ethan, she cried.
Then apologized because he looked frightened by it.
“Sorry, buddy.”
She sat on the carpet instead.
Ethan eventually brought her a wooden truck.
That was enough.
That evening, Megan confronted Victor.
Not Serena.
Victor.
“If Claire had not found him, how long before you noticed?”
Victor’s face tightened.
“I was coming home that night.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He looked at Ethan playing across the room.
“I don’t know.”
Megan nodded.
“That’s the answer.”
It hurt him.
Good questions often do.
Then she asked:
“Why did you marry someone who knew Laura and never told you?”
Victor looked defensive.
“That’s Serena’s lie.”
“Yes. Why didn’t you ask enough about her past to discover it?”
He didn’t answer.
Megan wasn’t blaming him for Serena’s choices.
She was forcing him to examine the kind of loneliness that made him rush into a new marriage.
Victor and Serena married fourteen months after Laura died.
He had been terrified of raising Ethan alone.
Serena was organized.
Elegant.
Competent.
She walked into chaos and made decisions.
Victor confused relief with trust.
I understood that more than I wanted to.
Then Megan turned to me.
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“Why are you still here?”
The question surprised me.
“Because Ethan needs continuity.”
“Yes.”
She waited.
“That’s not the whole answer.”
I looked away.
Maybe it wasn’t.
Ethan had become the center of my life too.
I had delayed going back to school for pediatric occupational therapy.
Declined other jobs.
Stopped dating seriously.
I called it devotion.
Maybe some of it was fear.
Laura had asked me to listen when Ethan cried.
I had turned that request into something close to a life sentence.
Megan said quietly:
“You can love him without disappearing into him.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Then Ethan wandered over.
He climbed into my lap.
“Claire stay.”
My throat tightened.
I hugged him.
“For now.”
Victor heard that.
His eyes met mine.
For the first time, he seemed to understand I might leave eventually.
Not because Serena won.
May you like
Because I had a life too.
And protecting Ethan could not require me to give all of it away.
