“About what?”
She hesitated.
“The baby.”
I closed my eyes.
“He has told me nothing.”
Silence again.
Then Sophie said something I did not expect.
“He said you knew.”
I gripped the phone tighter.
“Knew what?”
“That he and I had been seeing each other.”
“No.”
“And that when I got pregnant, you two had discussed possibly helping with the baby.”
I nearly laughed.
The sound that came out was closer to a gasp.
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
“He told you I knew about you?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I’m sorry.”
“How long, Sophie?”
“About fourteen months.”
The coffee shop disappeared around me.
Fourteen months.
I looked down at the list of business trips.
“Were you in Chicago?”
“What?”
“Did you move to Chicago?”
“No.”
I stared at the page.
“Where do you live?”
“About forty minutes from you.”
That answer hurt in a fresh place.
Julian had not maintained some distant affair hidden behind business travel.
He had created geography.
He had invented an entire city between us.
Sophie said, “Claire, I really am sorry.”
“How did you get my number?”
“Julian’s sister.”
“Marta?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me enough that I sat straighter.
“Why would Marta give you my number?”
“She called me this morning.”
“What did she say?”
“That I needed to talk to you before Julian made things worse.”
I almost asked how much worse things could get.
Instead, I said, “Did Marta tell you they discussed your pregnancy at dinner yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“And that they thought I couldn’t understand?”
A pause.
“What do you mean?”
I realized Sophie did not know everything.
So I told her.
Not all ten years.
Just the dinner.
Julian’s announcement.
Helga’s question.
Marta’s question.
The sentence about making me raise the baby.
Sophie went silent for so long I thought the call had dropped.
Then she said, “She said what?”
“You heard me.”
“I never agreed to anything like that.”
“I assumed not.”
“Julian said if things became complicated, you were open to helping.”
I pressed my hand against my forehead.
“Helping how?”
“He never explained clearly.”
“What exactly has he told you about me?”
Another silence.
Then Sophie answered quietly.
“That your marriage has been more like a friendship for years.”
I closed my eyes.
“That you stopped being intimate.”
False.
“That the fertility treatments had damaged your marriage.”
Partly true, twisted into something else.
“That you had talked about separating but didn’t want your families to know yet.”
Completely false.
“And that you knew he had started seeing me again.”
I looked at the wedding ring on my hand.
“He took me to dinner three weeks ago for our tenth anniversary.”
Sophie inhaled sharply.
“He told me you didn’t celebrate it.”
I almost admired the precision of the lies.
They were not reckless.
They were engineered.
Small enough to sound plausible.
Specific enough to prevent questions.
I asked, “When did you two start seeing each other again?”
She told me.
The date matched one of Julian’s first supposed Chicago trips.
“Why are you calling me now?”
Sophie’s voice changed.
Less defensive.
More tired.
“Because I started asking questions after I got pregnant.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Practical ones. What he was going to do. Whether he was actually leaving. Whether you really knew. Every time I asked for something concrete, he delayed.”
I understood that pattern.
“He said he needed time.”
“Yes.”
“He said his parents would help.”
“Yes.”
“He said things were complicated.”
Sophie gave a short laugh.
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t believe him.”
Neither did I.
We spoke for almost forty minutes.
I did not like Sophie.
I wasn’t ready to.
She had known Julian was married.