Chapter 3 - The Papers in the Blue Folder
Hannah arrived carrying a suitcase and enough anger to warm the entire hospital.
She hugged Clare carefully.
Then she stepped back and looked at her.
“I should have called more.”
“So should I.”
“All right,” Hannah said. “We can both be wrong later. What do you need now?”
Clare started crying again.
Apparently, practical kindness was what undid her.
Through a referral from the hospital, she met a family lawyer named Leah Voss. Leah wore plain glasses, carried an overfilled briefcase, and asked questions without making Clare feel foolish.
“Do you want to return to the marital home?”
“No.”
“Do you have somewhere safe after discharge?”
Hannah offered her apartment, but there were stairs, a long drive, and Clare’s ongoing appointments to consider.
Daniel had offered the guest suite at his house while she recovered.
Clare had refused twice.
Leah asked why.
“Because I don’t know him.”
“A sensible concern. We can discuss alternatives.”
There was no pressure.
That helped Clare think.
Margaret called that afternoon and explained that Daniel’s sister and her family would be staying through New Year’s. Clare would have her own room, a lock, and no obligation to entertain anyone.
“You may dislike us in complete privacy,” Margaret said.
Clare smiled.
After speaking with the social worker and Hannah, she accepted a short stay.
Leah also arranged for Clare to retrieve personal belongings from the Boston house without meeting Marcus alone.
Hannah went with her, along with an officer available to keep the exchange peaceful.
Marcus was not there.
Sophia’s white coat hung in the entryway.
Clare stopped beneath it.
She knew that coat.
Sophia had worn it to the fertility clinic fundraiser where she had squeezed Clare’s hand and said, “Your turn will come.”
Hannah followed her gaze.
“Do you want it moved?”
“No.”
Clare walked past.
The nursery door was closed.
Inside, the crib remained unassembled. The yellow pajamas were still folded in the dresser.
She packed them first.
Then her medical records, clothing, photographs of her mother, and the blue folder Marcus kept in the office cabinet.
It had her name on the label.
She had every reason to believe it contained her documents.
Back in Vermont, Leah reviewed what Clare had brought.
Some papers were ordinary.
Others were not.
There was a proposed transfer involving Clare’s share of the house. A loan application listing income she did not earn. A signature that resembled hers until she looked closely.
“That isn’t mine,” she said.
Leah turned the page.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Clare had inherited the down payment from her mother. The house had been purchased during the marriage, but that money had come from an account held in Clare’s name.
Marcus had always said keeping track of the distinction was unnecessary.
We’re married, Clare. It’s all ours.
Now the distinction appeared to have mattered greatly to him.
Leah made copies and referred the financial questions to an attorney with the appropriate experience.
“We’ll investigate before drawing conclusions,” she said.
Clare nodded.
She was learning that careful language could be a form of protection.
That evening, Margaret found her at the kitchen table.
“Tea?”
“Please.”
Daniel stood at the stove stirring soup.
The house felt different in daylight. There were scuffed floors beneath the expensive rugs. A child’s drawing was pinned to the refrigerator. One cabinet refused to close.
“This was my wife’s family home,” Daniel said when he noticed Clare studying the old photographs. “We moved here after her father died.”
Clare looked at a picture of a woman laughing beside a lake.
“Your wife?”
“Elise.”
“Is she—”
“She died six years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded, accepting it without asking her to make the sorrow smaller.
Margaret placed a mug beside Clare.
“I’m his mother,” she explained. “Though he occasionally behaves as if I’m an unreasonable tenant.”
“You reorganized my tools.”
“They were disorganized.”
Clare listened to them argue about a missing screwdriver.
For five minutes, nobody mentioned Marcus.
Nobody asked her to be brave.
She ate half a bowl of soup before realizing she had been hungry.
Later, alone in the guest room, she opened the bag from the nursery.
The yellow pajamas lay on top.
She spread them across her lap.
For weeks, she had imagined bringing her daughter home to a painted room and a husband waiting with a camera.
Now she had a borrowed bedroom and legal appointments.
Her daughter moved beneath her hand.
Clare bent over the tiny pajamas.
May you like
“I’m still going to bring you home,” she whispered.
“I just have to find it first.”
