Chapter 4 - The Night Evan Never Told Me About
I met Mara again the next afternoon.
This time, I chose the place.
A public park beside Lake Mercer where no waitress would refill our coffee every twelve minutes while pretending not to listen.
Mara arrived wearing a navy coat and carrying a brown envelope.
"You talked to him."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
She sat beside me on the bench.
For a while we watched geese move across the gray water.
"I know about Lily," I said.
Mara's eyes lowered.
"I'm sorry you had to find out this way."
"Tell me about her."
She looked surprised.
"What?"
"Lily."
Mara breathed out slowly.
"She hated peas."
I almost smiled.
"That's the first thing?"
"It's what came into my head."
"Okay."
"She'd pick them up one at a time and throw them on the floor. Then she'd look offended, like we were the ones behaving badly."
Mara laughed softly.
The sound broke at the end.
"She loved dogs. Couldn't say dog. Called every animal 'gog.' Dogs, cats, squirrels. Once a pigeon."
I stared at the lake.
"Did Evan love her?"
Mara looked at me sharply.
"More than himself."
That hurt in a different way.
"Tell me about the accident."
She folded her hands.
"We were driving home from his parents' house."
"I read your letter."
Mara went still.
"I'm sorry."
"No."
"I shouldn't have."
"No," she repeated. "You probably should've."
She watched the water.
"Evan had been working too much. We needed money. Lily had been sick earlier that year and there were bills. His boss offered overtime."
"Sixteen hours?"
"Something like that."
"You asked to drive."
"Three times."
"Why wouldn't he let you?"
"Pride."
That sounded like Evan.
"He kept saying he was fine. We argued. Lily was asleep in the back."
Mara's voice changed.
"I remember the radio playing. I don't remember the song anymore. That bothers me. For years I thought if I could remember the song, I'd remember everything."
"You don't have to—"
"I do."
She drew a breath.
"I looked over. Evan's eyes closed."
My fingers tightened around each other.
"I yelled his name. He woke up and jerked the wheel. We hit the guardrail, crossed the road and went down an embankment."
She stared straight ahead.
"I woke up in the hospital."
"And Lily?"
"She died during surgery."
"I'm sorry."
Mara nodded.
"Evan broke his wrist and three ribs. I had a fractured pelvis."
Silence settled between us.
"He blamed himself."
"I blamed him too."
That was fair.
"For years?"
"For a long time."
"Do you still?"
Mara considered it.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because grief changes shape if you survive long enough."
She looked at me.
"I was angry because anger gave me something to do. If I stopped hating Evan, I had to admit Lily was simply gone."
The wind lifted her hair.
"What was in his mother's letter?"
Mara pulled the brown envelope from her bag.
"I found this inside one of my mother's old photo albums."
She handed it to me.
The envelope had been opened.
Inside were two sheets of paper.
The letter was from Evan's mother, Diane.
It had been written seventeen years earlier.
Mara,
I don't expect forgiveness for writing this so late. Evan doesn't know. I hope one day I will have the courage to tell both of you.
I stopped.
"What?"
"Keep reading."
The letter explained that on the afternoon of the crash, Diane had called Evan.
His father had been drinking.
Again.
There had been shouting.
Again.
Diane begged Evan to come over after work because she didn't feel safe.
Evan drove straight there after his sixteen-hour shift.
Mara and Lily joined him because they had already planned dinner with his parents.
By the time his father fell asleep, it was after midnight.
Mara had suggested staying.
Diane insisted they go.
Then came the sentence that made my chest tighten.
Evan told me he was too tired to drive. I told him his father would wake up angry if he found them there in the morning. I said, "You're young. Drink some coffee. You'll be fine."
I lowered the letter.
"Oh."
Mara nodded.
"Diane never told me that."
"Did she tell Evan?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Shame, probably."
"That doesn't make the accident her fault."
"I know."
"But it changes something."
"Yes."
Evan had admitted being tired.
His mother had pushed him.
Mara had never known.
Neither had he.
"Why did your mother have this?"
"Diane mailed it to her. My mother never gave it to me."
"Why?"
"Another dead person I can't ask."
I looked at Mara.
"So when you met Evan three weeks ago..."
"I gave him a copy."
"How did he react?"
"He vomited in the parking lot."
I closed my eyes.
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"You'll need to ask him."
"I keep doing that."
"Claire."
"What?"
"Don't confuse what I'm telling you with an excuse."
I looked over.
"Evan lied to you. For years. He met me and lied again. That part belongs to your marriage."
"Then why defend him?"
"I'm not."
She hesitated.
"I'm trying not to help you make the mistake I made."
"What mistake?"
"Believing a person can only be one thing."
Mara's eyes were wet.
"I spent years thinking Evan was the man who killed my daughter. He was also the man who stayed awake beside Lily's crib when she had pneumonia. He was the idiot who danced with her in the kitchen. He was the twenty-three-year-old kid working himself half to death because we couldn't pay medical bills."
She looked down at her hands.
"He made a terrible choice. He wasn't a terrible father."
My anger returned.
"He had seventeen years to tell me that."
"Yes."
"Seven years of marriage."
"Yes."
"Every time I asked about your face."
"I know."
"Why did he keep the tattoo?"
Mara smiled sadly.
"That tattoo wasn't about Lily."
"So it was about you."
"Originally."
That word mattered.
"Originally?"
"He got it six months before Lily died."
I stared.
"He really tattooed his girlfriend's face on his arm?"
"We were twenty-two."
Despite everything, I laughed.
Mara did too.
For five seconds we were simply two women agreeing that Evan Bennett had once been an idiot.
Then her smile faded.
"After the accident, he wanted it removed."
"What stopped him?"
"I did."
That surprised me.
"Why?"
"When we broke up, Evan told me he couldn't stand looking at my face."
Her voice softened.
"I told him good."
"Mara."
"I wasn't kind then."
"You'd lost your child."
"So had he."
She rubbed her eyes.
"Before I left town, he came to my mother's house. He said he was getting the tattoo covered. I told him he should keep it."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted him to hurt."
The admission hung between us.
"I said every time he looked at it, he should remember what his stubbornness cost us."
My stomach twisted.
"Jesus."
"I was twenty-four and broken."
"So he kept it as punishment."
"For a while."
"And later?"
"I don't know."
I thought of every time I'd asked him to cover it.
Every excuse.
Every refusal.
"I was asking him to erase a punishment he thought he deserved."
"Maybe."
Mara looked at me.
"But Claire, there's something you should understand."
"What?"
"He contacted me after our second meeting."
"When?"
"Four days ago."
"About what?"
She handed me her phone.
There was a text from Evan.
I need to tell Claire everything. I don't know how.
Mara had answered:
Start with Lily.
His next message made my stomach drop.
And then what? Tell her why we never had children?
I looked up.
"What does that mean?"
Mara's expression tightened.
"I asked him the same thing."
My hand shook.
"What did he say?"
"He wouldn't answer."
My mind raced through doctor's appointments.
Blood tests.
Calendars.
The year we'd tried.
Evan comforting me.
Evan saying maybe someday.
A terrible thought formed.
"Did the accident make him unable to have children?"
"I don't know."
"Did he get a vasectomy?"
"I don't know."
"Did he know something I didn't?"
"Claire, I truly don't know."
I stood.
My legs felt weak.
Mara rose too.
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
"Don't drive angry."
The warning was so specific that we both went silent.
Then Mara touched my sleeve.
"Claire."
I turned.
"There's one more thing."
I almost laughed.
Of course there was.
"What?"
"After Lily died, Evan made a decision."
"What decision?"
"He told me he'd never have another child."
I stared at her.
"People say things when they're grieving."
"Yes."
"But?"
"But when I saw him three weeks ago, I asked whether he ever changed his mind."
The wind moved through the trees.
"What did he say?"
Mara looked sick.
May you like
"He said he made sure he couldn't."
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