Chapter 11

#Rhett

My mother came to the house at nine the next morning. She did not call first. She never did.

I was in the study with the medical paper flat on the desk in front of me. I had not slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Lyra whisper, I said it a lot.

"You look terrible," Victoria said from the doorway. She sat down in the chair across from me without being asked. "Celine told me you were up half the night."

"Read this, Mother." I turned the paper around.

She did not pick it up. She glanced at it the way you glance at a bill you have no intention of paying.

"She forged it," Victoria said.

"Mother."

"Think, Rhett. Who knows Aveline better than I do? Eight years she has lived under my eye. If that girl were truly sick, I would have been the first person to see it. I have nursed your grandfather, your aunt, and half this family into their graves. I know a sick person when I see one. They do not walk down my staircase with their back straight and demand five minutes."

I opened my mouth, and she raised one finger.

"She printed a paper to get your attention. She was angry that Celine had come back, and she wanted you running after her with your heart in your hands. She has always been clever that way. Quiet, and clever." She smoothed her sleeve. "I am only sorry you cannot see it. I raised you better than this."

For eight years, I had listened to my mother and felt she was right. She was calm, she was certain, and I always let her certainty fill the space where mine should have been. I waited for that feeling now.

"Her car crashed, Mother. The police found her bag and her passport."

"A woman who wants to be found leaves a trail. You are doing exactly what she wants, and I will not watch my son be manipulated by someone who never deserved him." Her voice softened, and somehow that was worse. "I have given up so much for you. Your father's business, my own friends, my health. Everything I did was for this family. And now you sit here doubting me over a piece of paper."

"I am not doubting you."

"You are. I can see it." She pressed her hand to her chest. "It hurts me, Rhett. After everything."

I felt the old guilt rise, as it always did, and I hated how fast it came. "I'm sorry."

"Good." She stood and picked up her bag. "Let the police do their work, and do not say another word about this to Lyra."

"Lyra already knows."

Something moved in her face, small and quick, and then it was gone. "Then she must be told it is not true."

She left. I stayed at the desk a long time, looking at the date at the top of the paper. It was the day Aveline had stood in front of me, and I had walked into this room and closed the door.

At noon I went upstairs to find Celine. She was in the sitting room of the east wing with her feet up and a cup of tea, flipping through a magazine of baby furniture. The curtains were half drawn. She smiled when she saw me.

"There you are. Have you eaten? You look like you have not eaten in days."

"I'm fine."

"You are not fine." She patted the sofa. "Sit. You are making yourself ill."

I sat. Her hand found mine, and I let it stay. It was warm and familiar, and I did not know why it suddenly felt like a hand I was borrowing.

"Lyra has not come out of her room."

"She is sulking. Children do that. She will forget by next week."

"She asked me if her mother was dead."

Celine's thumb moved across my knuckles. "Darling, Aveline is not her mother. Not really. You and I are going to give her a proper family. A brother. A home where nobody is sad all the time."

I nodded. I wanted to believe her. It would have been easier.

That afternoon I called my mother again.

"Celine says the baby is fine. I would like to see the scan. I have never seen one."

"The scan?" There was a short pause, and a cup set down. "Oh, Rhett. I forgot to collect it from the hospital on Tuesday. The nurse was in a hurry, and I did not think you would want it."

"I would have liked to see it."

"You never asked before." Her voice softened, the way it did when I was a boy and had disappointed her. "At the next visit I will remember. I promise. Do not worry about small things. You have enough on your mind."

"Alright," I said.

I did not think about it again. I hung up and went back to the study, where the paper still lay on the desk. Six months. That was what mattered.

At six, there was a knock. It was Lyra, in her pajamas, holding her rabbit by one ear. She had not left her room all day.

"Daddy," she said. "Can I show you something?"

I knelt down. She held out a drawing folded in four. I opened it carefully. It was the picture she had covered from Aveline in the playroom, the one she had called a secret.

It showed three people under a big yellow sun: a man, a tall woman with long dark hair, and a small girl in the middle holding both their hands.

The woman was not Celine.

"I drew it before," Lyra whispered. "I wrote a name on the back. I was scared Auntie Celine would see." She turned it over with a shaking hand.

In crooked pencil, scribbled out and written again, it said: Mommy.

I stared at it. Behind me, I heard the door to the east wing open and Celine's footsteps in the hall, coming closer.

"Hide it," Lyra said, and pushed the paper into my hand.