Chapter 21: Under the Water

I gave Lydia the message at one in the morning, in a whisper, with the monitor ticking.

"His mother says she knows," I said. "She says it's all right, and she forgives you. She says she knew before you did."

Lydia lay very still.

The drip fell, drop by drop, in its little chamber.

"She told me that in July," she said at last. "That I could come to her. And I ran."

"Why?"

"Because she's the only one who was ever kind about it."

She turned her face toward the wall.

"That's what makes it unbearable."

"Lydia."

"Tomorrow." She did not look at me. "Not tonight. I can't say it tonight. I'll tell you tomorrow, I swear on Mom."

I stood there with my hand on the rail.

I could have pushed.

I did not, because she had been bleeding on a ballroom floor four hours ago, and because I had promised my mother.

"Tomorrow," I said.

Miles drove me to my father's house.

He did not speak in the car, and when we got inside he stood in the front hall with his coat still on.

"If it's him," he said.

"Miles."

"If it's him, then that baby is my brother or my sister. And your niece or nephew."

"And it's his, and he put her in that flat and made her lie."

"We don't know."

"Clara, he said 'my' in that corridor and stopped." His voice cracked.

"I stood on a stage and said I'd never touched her. I should have said who had."

"You said what you knew."

"I don't want to know." He covered his eyes with one hand. "I want to take my father out of my head."

I took off his coat.

I hung it on the peg by the door, next to my father's work jackets.

I took his hand and led him up the stairs to the bathroom.

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