He steps outside, but before he leaves, he turns back to me. “Just so you know, I kept my promise. For nine months I focused on school and I didn’t so much as think about another girl. I waited for you. And when I came back, you were gone. Not even a letter. You destroyed me. And you ruined me for anyone else. But I see now that you moved on, so … good for you. I hope whatever your reasons are, they were worth it.”
With that he climbs into his car, and I close the door and fight the burn of tears that sting my eyes so I can go upstairs and tuck our daughter into bed.
Chapter 35
Thayer
I sit in my idling rental car in Lila’s driveway, my hands white-knuckling the steering wheel as I think about the picture I saw on my way out. Sitting on a table by the front door was a school photo of a little girl, only she wasn’t little. She was more like eight or nine if I had to guess.
“No fucking way.” I sit back into my seat and run the numbers in my head one more time, trying to piece everything together.
If her daughter is nine, that means she got pregnant ten years ago. I know she wasn’t pregnant when I left for college, and we were always diligent about using condoms, though there was one time we thought one of them might have torn but we weren’t sure …
I left in the middle of August.
Westley left in the middle of September.
He wouldn’t have …
She wouldn’t have …
I think back to Thanksgiving that year, when he was acting standoffish. I brushed it off until it happened the next year and the next. Something changed after that summer and we went from being as close as brothers to perfect strangers over the last ten years.
But I still have his number in my phone.
I grab my cell and call the bastard. I don’t care how late it is in Connecticut.
“Hello?” Westley answers.
“Did you know Lila had a kid?” I ask, hoping to catch him off guard. It’s an old interview technique I learned in law school. Westley’s never been good at lying on the spot.
“Did you find her?” He ignores my question.
“Answer me. Did you know Lila had a kid?”
“No.” He almost answers too quickly.
“I take it you found her?” he asks. “Where was she? I always wondered what happened to her. She was there one summer then the next summer she was gone.”
He’s rambling now, a red flag.
He knows more than he’s letting on.
“Don’t lie to me, West,” I say. “You know something.”
He’s quiet, and I hold my breath as I wait for him to answer.
“Tell me,” I say through gritted teeth. “This is your chance. Tell me what you did.”
For a second, I wonder if he assaulted her, knocked her up, and Granddad paid her to go away for “liability reasons.”
If he hurt her, he’s a dead man.
I don’t care if we’re family.
“I think we should talk,” Westley says. “In person.”
“Why, so you can look me in the eye and tell me you fucked my girlfriend and got her pregnant?”
“Thayer … I’m sorry. It’s beyond complicated and I can’t tell you anything. Not right now. Just … don’t tell anybody you found Lila, okay?”
“Did you hurt her?” I ask.
“What? God. No. I would never.”
“Fuck,” I say, punching the steering wheel. “You knew where she was all these years and you didn’t say a goddamned thing? You saw how much this destroyed me, you saw me put my entire life on hold and you sat back and … you’re pathetic, Westley. You know that? And now you’re dead to me.”
He’s silent on the other end, and all I keep picturing are the two of them together. I’m not sure which one I feel most betrayed by at this point.
“We’ll talk when you come back,” he says.
“No need. I’ve got nothing more to say to you.” I end the call and throw my phone into the passenger seat.
I’ve got a flight to catch tomorrow, but before I go, I want to have one last word with Lila, and then she’ll never hear from me again.
Chapter 36
Lila
There’s a persistent tap coming from downstairs, like someone rapping on the screen door.
I glance down to see MJ’s out cold again, and then I tiptoe out of her room, making my way back downstairs. Flicking on the porch light, I find Thayer standing there.
He still hasn’t left, not that this surprises me.
“We have to talk,” he says when I open the door. “Now.”
There’s a wild flash in his stormy eyes, and he’s breathing so hard his nostrils are flared. But I’m not scared—I’m curious.
“I just talked to Westley.”
Oh, God.
“Come in,” I say, though I don’t take him to the living room. I make him stand here in the foyer.