Ethan kept looking at the twins as if he were trying to memorize them.
I recognized the expression.
He used to study details when he wanted to understand something important.
Now he was looking at his own children, searching their faces for information that ten years of absence could never provide.
Sophie shifted her weight.
"Can I ask you something?"
Ethan straightened.
"Of course."
She glanced at me, then looked back at him.
"Do you know my favorite color?"
He didn't answer immediately.
His eyes moved to her blue dress.
"Blue?"
Sophie nodded.
"But you only guessed."
Ethan looked down.
"Yes. I did."
She touched one of the sparkles on her skirt.
"I like blue because it looks different in the sunlight. Sometimes it looks almost silver."
Ethan watched her fingers.
"I didn't know that."
"No."
She said it without anger.
That somehow made it harder to hear.
"I like drawing, too," she continued. "Mom puts some of my pictures on the refrigerator."
Ethan glanced toward me.
"I'd like to see them sometime."
Sophie considered this.
"Maybe."
She didn't promise.
I was proud of her for that.
She had spent the evening being brave, but she was still a child.
She didn't owe Ethan immediate affection simply because he had learned her name.
Noah closed his notebook.
"I have another question."
Ethan turned toward him.
"All right."
"Did you ever think about Mom after she left?"
Ethan looked at me.
"Yes."
Noah waited.
"Then why didn't you contact her?"
Ethan's shoulders lowered slightly.
"I believed our marriage was over. I thought we both needed to move forward."
"That doesn't explain why you didn't ask if she was okay."
The room went quiet.
Ethan stared at Noah.
I could see that he wanted to defend himself.
He could have blamed the divorce.
He could have said he believed I didn't want to hear from him.
He could have explained that he had been busy building his company.
Instead, he looked down at the table.
"I don't have a good answer for that."
Noah nodded once.
It was the first response Ethan had given that seemed to satisfy him, at least enough to continue.
"Okay."
I watched my son.
He was not trying to hurt his father.
He wanted to understand why an adult could make a decision that affected other people and then live as if those people had disappeared.
I had asked myself the same question for years.
I still didn't have a complete answer.
Ethan moved toward the water pitcher.
His hand shook slightly as he filled a glass.
He set it down without drinking.
"Claire, I owe you an apology."
I felt my body tense.
I had imagined those words before.
In some of those imagined conversations, I had welcomed them.
In others, I had rejected them because they came too late.
Now that Ethan had said them, I found myself waiting to see what followed.
"I was cruel to you," he continued. "I handled the end of our marriage badly."
I looked at him.
"Badly?"
He closed his eyes for a moment.
"Yes. That was an understatement."
I didn't help him find better words.
He had to do that himself.
"I shouldn't have thrown money at you. I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. I shouldn't have made you feel as if you meant nothing."
My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag.
I remembered the bills on the floor.
I remembered the rain running down the back of my neck.
I remembered standing there, unable to believe that the man I had married could look at me with such contempt.
Ethan continued.
"I can't change what happened."
"No," I said. "You can't."
He nodded.
"I know."
I waited for him to explain.
He didn't.
For once, he seemed to understand that an apology was not a request for me to make him feel better.
Sophie sat down in one of the chairs.
Her shoes had begun to hurt.
I noticed the way she shifted her feet beneath the table.
"Are we going to stay here all night?" she asked.
I looked at her.
"No, sweetheart."
Ethan glanced at the clock on the wall.
He seemed surprised by the passage of time.
"The gala is still going on."
"Yes," Lucas said. "The host has continued the program."
Ethan looked toward the door.
He was clearly thinking about the people outside, the questions they might ask, and the speech he had abandoned.
For ten years, I had been the person waiting for Ethan to decide whether I deserved his attention.
Now he was the one being forced to wait while I considered what I wanted to do next.
I turned toward Lucas.
"We should discuss the legal matters separately from the children."
"Agreed."
Ethan looked at me.
"Are you planning to pursue the support issue?"
"I haven't made every decision yet."
"But the documents—"
"The documents are real, and the questions are real. We'll handle them through the proper channels."
I paused.
"But that isn't why I came."
He looked frustrated.
"I understand that now."
I wasn't sure he did.
Still, I didn't argue.
Noah glanced at his notebook.
He had reached the bottom of the page.
I wondered whether he would ask another question.
Instead, he closed it and slipped it beneath his arm.
"Can we go back to the gala?"
Ethan looked at him.
"You want to return to the room?"
"I want to see what happens next."
Sophie nodded.
"Me too."
I looked at Lucas.
He gave a small nod.
"We can leave whenever you're ready."
I turned toward the children.
"Are you both comfortable going back?"
"Yes," Sophie said.
Noah nodded.
I stood and picked up my bag.
Ethan rose as well.
"Claire."
I turned.
He looked at the twins before speaking.
"I don't expect you to forgive me tonight."
I waited.
"I don't even know what I should ask for."
It was the first thing he had said that sounded completely unprepared.
I believed him.
That did not mean I felt sorry for him.
It meant that for the first time, he seemed to understand that he had entered a situation he could not control with money, confidence, or a well-written speech.
"You should start by being honest," I said.
He nodded.
I opened the door.
The sounds of the gala grew louder as we stepped into the corridor.
Lucas walked beside me.
Noah followed close behind.
Sophie took my hand again.
We returned to the ballroom together.
Click here to continue reading: PART 12: When We Returned to the Ballroom, Ethan Had to Choose Between Protecting His Image and Telling the Truth
The Night I Heard My Ex-Husband Tell the World He Had Never Been a Father
Part 11 of 15
