Eleanor didn't begin immediately.
She sat across from me with the envelope between us.
Julian remained standing.
Chloe held the baby close, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.
The second infant slept in the bassinet.
I could hear the faint sound of traffic outside the house.
It seemed wrong that the world could continue moving while my life was coming apart again.
Eleanor looked at me.
"When you and Julian decided to postpone the transfer, you were dealing with your mother's illness."
I nodded.
"I remember."
"Julian told me he was handling the paperwork with the clinic."
I looked toward him.
He kept his eyes on the floor.
Eleanor continued.
"I didn't question it at the time. He told me the clinic had made an administrative error, and that there had been a serious problem with the storage equipment."
I felt my stomach tighten.
"That's what he told me."
"I know."
She paused.
"Later, I began to hear different things."
Julian shook his head.
"Mother."
She ignored him.
I leaned forward.
"What different things?"
Eleanor said there had been inconsistencies in the explanations she had heard.
She had asked Julian about them.
He had dismissed her concerns.
At the time, she had not known enough to insist on an answer.
Then the twins were born.
And when she saw the boy, she began to question what she had been told.
I looked at the baby.
"Because of his face?"
"Partly."
Eleanor glanced at Chloe.
"And because of what Chloe said."
Chloe shut her eyes.
I felt a fresh wave of anger.
"What did she say?"
She began shaking her head.
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen."
I stared at her.
"That isn't an answer."
She looked up at me.
For the first time since I had arrived, she seemed to understand that another apology would not be enough.
"I knew about the embryos."
I waited.
She swallowed.
"I knew more than I should have."
Julian moved toward her.
"Chloe, don't."
She flinched.
That small movement told me something about their relationship I had never seen before.
I looked at him.
"Let her speak."
He stopped.
Chloe wiped her face with the back of her hand.
She said she had known Julian was dealing with the fertility clinic's paperwork after my mother became ill.
She had been close to him during the affair.
She had listened to him talk about our marriage and the future he wanted.
I felt sick listening to her describe it.
She had been inside the life I thought I was sharing with my husband while I was trying to keep my mother alive.
She had known about the embryos.
She had known what they meant to me.
And she had continued the affair.
I gripped the edge of the table.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She looked at the baby.
"I was afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of losing Julian."
I stared at her.
The answer was so small compared with what she had helped destroy.
She said she had been afraid of what would happen if the truth came out.
She had been afraid that Julian would leave her.
She had been afraid that I would never forgive her.
She had been afraid of everything except the damage she was causing me.
I didn't say that aloud.
I didn't need to.
Her face showed that she understood.
Eleanor opened the envelope.
Inside were papers folded together.
She didn't hand them to me immediately.
"These are connected to the clinic," she said. "I want you to see them, but I don't want to pretend I understand every detail."
I looked at the papers.
My hands felt numb.
Julian stepped closer.
"Those documents don't prove what you think they prove."
I turned toward him.
"You keep telling me that. What do they prove?"
He said the paperwork was complicated.
He said there had been decisions made during a difficult time.
He said I was drawing conclusions without understanding the circumstances.
Every sentence sounded like another door closing.
I had heard this version of Julian before.
It was the man who could turn a direct question into a discussion about why the question was unfair.
I pushed the papers away from him.
"I'm not asking you to make this sound better. I'm asking you to tell me what happened."
He looked at me.
For a moment, I thought he might finally answer.
Then he glanced at Eleanor.
His expression hardened.
"This is between Sarah and me."
Eleanor's voice was low.
"It stopped being that when you lied to her."
Julian looked furious.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Then explain it."
He said nothing.
I felt the last of my hope for an easy explanation disappear.
I had wanted someone to tell me that there had been a mistake, that the resemblance meant nothing, that the clinic's problems had been misunderstood.
I wanted a world in which the years I had spent grieving were not built on a lie.
But the people around me were not behaving like people who had discovered a misunderstanding.
They were behaving like people who had been keeping a secret.
I looked at Chloe.
"Are these your biological children?"
She nodded slowly.
"Yes."
The answer hurt, but it wasn't the answer I had been waiting for.
I looked toward the baby in her arms.
"Then why does he look like me?"
Chloe started crying again.
"I don't know how to tell you."
I stared at her.
"You know how to tell me. You just don't want to."
She looked away.
I was right.
I could see it in the way she held herself, in the way she kept glancing at Julian before answering anything.
She was waiting for permission.
That realization made me feel colder than the room.
Even now, after everything, she was still looking to him to decide what she could say.
I stood.
The chair scraped loudly against the floor.
"I can't do this if everyone is going to keep lying."
Eleanor rose, too.
"Sarah, please."
I looked at her.
"I came here because you said I needed to see the babies. I saw them. Now I need the truth."
She nodded.
"You deserve it."
I looked at Julian.
"Did you know the boy might be mine?"
His face changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
His eyes moved toward Chloe, then back to me.
He took a breath.
"I didn't know what you were going to believe when you walked in here."
It wasn't an answer.
I stepped closer.
"That isn't what I asked."
He pressed his lips together.
Then he said, "I knew there were questions about the embryos."
My knees felt weak.
Questions.
Not a temperature failure.
Not a tragic accident that had ended our last chance at having children.
Questions.
I gripped the back of the chair.
"How long have there been questions?"
He looked down.
I waited.
He said nothing.
I had to force myself to speak again.
"Before or after you sent me that photograph?"
His jaw tightened.
"Before."
I closed my eyes.
The picture flashed through my mind.
Julian standing behind Chloe in the hospital room.
Two newborns.
A caption chosen to wound me.
He had sent it while knowing there were unanswered questions about the very thing he had used to humiliate me.
I opened my eyes.
"Why would you do that?"
He didn't answer.
I knew why he had wanted to hurt me.
He had shown me what he believed I could never have.
But now the photograph seemed different.
Not less cruel.
Worse.
Because I no longer knew whether he had been celebrating a future he had earned or using a secret to make sure I never questioned the past.
I looked at Eleanor.
"What happens now?"
She folded her hands on the table.
"Now, we stop pretending."
I looked at the baby boy again.
He slept peacefully, unaware that his existence had brought a dozen hidden questions into the open.
I wanted to know who he was.
I wanted to know what Julian had done.
I wanted to know whether the years I had spent mourning our embryos had been based on a lie.
But I could not get those answers from people who were still deciding how much truth they could afford to tell me.
So I made a decision.
I would not leave until someone gave me a real explanation.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: I Had Come to Eleanor’s House Expecting Another Cruelty, but I Left Knowing I Could No Longer Trust the Story of My Own Loss
I Thought Losing the Chance to Become a Mother Was the Worst Thing My Husband Could Ever Do to Me
Part 7 of 16
