The Secret That Broke Us novel · Chapter 25 of 32

Chapter 25: The Third Row

The nurse said the lumbar puncture would take about thirty minutes, and that parents wait outside.

I had done this from the other end of the phone for nine years.

I had never once thought about the chairs.

Ben walked me to two seats by the window and sat down beside me.

Nate stood up from the third row.

The girl was asleep in the sling, her cap crooked, one fist against his collarbone.

"I came as soon as I read it," he said.

"I told you not to come."

"He's my son."

I had no answer for that, because it was true.

Ben didn't move, but his hand found the small of my back and stayed there.

Nate saw it.

His eyes went to Ben's hand, and then up to Ben's face, and he took a long time deciding what to do with his own.

"You live in her house," he said.

"I do," Ben said.

"You were on the highway that night."

"I was."

"Then you know what I am."

"I know what you did," Ben said. "I don't know what you are. That's up to you."

Nate flinched, and I watched it land.

He sat down on the edge of a chair across from us, with the girl against his chest.

"I'm not asking you to go," he said to Ben. "I'm asking to be the one who goes back there with her. When they let us. I'm his father."

"No," I said.

He looked at me.

"You're his father, and you'll be in the room when the doctor talks," I said. "You'll hear every word. But when they let us back, Ben walks me in."

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