Chapter 12: What She Asked For

"Say that again," I said.

Camille's hands tightened in her lap.

"Russell told me about the results in March, five years ago. He called me from a parking garage. He was crying."

"Why you?"

"Because I was the only person he trusted with anything," she said.

"He swore me to secrecy. I kept it for five years."

"And that night?"

"He didn't go to his own party. He said he couldn't stand in a room full of people. He stayed in the guest suite."

"And I texted him all night."

She swallowed.

"When you called him, I was standing beside you with my phone in my hand. He texted me one line: she says she's pregnant."

"What did you answer?"

"That it couldn't be his. That you must have been with someone."

"Who?"

"A man from your old program. Someone you used to mention."

I stared at her.

"I haven't spoken to anyone from that program in eleven years," I said. "I don't know if he's alive."

"I know that now."

"Do you?"

"I was frightened," Camille said, and her voice cracked.

"I didn't want to lose him again."

"You held my hand in the ambulance."

"I was trying to hold it together."

"You told me he was home asleep and asked if you should wake him."

She said nothing.

"So he was in the guest suite, in my home," I said slowly.

"You told him not to come to me."

"Maggie."

"Then you sat beside me in the ambulance. Then you sent me a photograph of him asleep."

Barbara spoke for the first time in several minutes.

"Camille was trying to help," she said.

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