“I love her.”
“You said the real reason you married her was much worse than I thought.”
“Because the truth behind it is worse. Not because the marriage was false.”
He pulled his wallet from his pocket and removed a small laminated card. It was worn at the edges.
He handed it to me.
It was a photograph from our fourth-grade spring fair.
Rosie stood between us in a yellow sweater, holding a blue ribbon she had won for a clay bird. I was grinning at the camera. Ben was not.
He was looking at Rosie.
Even at nine years old, the expression was unmistakable.
Adoration.
On the back, in childish handwriting, Rosie had written:
Ben says he will marry me if I still like him when we are old. I think twenty-five is old.
My throat closed.
“She gave this to me the night I proposed,” Ben said. “She remembered the promise. So did I.”
“Then why keep secrets from me?”
“Because Rosie wanted to protect you until we had proof.”
“Protect me from what?”
“From learning that Richard Hale may have built your entire life around a crime.”
A nurse appeared and told Ben he could see the twins.
He looked toward the NICU, then back at me.
“Please wait here.”
“I’m going home.”
“Claire—”
“You stay with your wife and children.”
