Chapter 37
Iris's voice was so quiet I almost didn't hear it. "Mommy told Daddy she never loved him. I heard her say it."
The words hung in the air between us, sharp and terrible. I stopped breathing. The pink walls of her bedroom seemed to press inward, the stuffed animals on her shelves suddenly grotesque in their cheerful innocence.
"Iris—"
"I was supposed to be asleep." She picked at a loose thread on her comforter, pulling it longer and longer. "But I heard them fighting downstairs. Mommy's voice was really loud. She said—" Her breath hitched. "She said, 'I never loved you, Dominic. I loved what you could give me.'"
My stomach dropped. I wanted to stop her, to tell her she didn't have to do this, but my throat had closed up completely.
"And Daddy asked her why she married him if she didn't love him." Iris's voice had gone flat, mechanical, like she was reciting something she'd memorized. "Mommy laughed. Not a nice laugh. She said, 'Because you were rich and respectable and I was pregnant. What else was I supposed to do?'"
The thread came free in her hand. She stared at it.
"Then she said there was someone else. Someone who made her feel alive instead of suffocated." Iris looked up at me, and her eyes were ancient. "She said she was leaving. That night. She was going to pack a bag and go, and Daddy could explain it to me however he wanted."
I reached for her hand. She let me take it, her fingers cold and small in mine.
"I came downstairs," she whispered. "I was going to tell her not to go. But when I got to the bottom of the stairs, she was already putting on her coat. Daddy was just standing there, not saying anything. And I—" Her voice cracked. "I ran back upstairs. I didn't say goodbye. I didn't tell her I was sorry for saying I hated her. I just hid in my room like a baby."
"Iris, no—"
"And then the police came and said there was an accident." She pulled her hand away from mine, wrapped her arms around her knees again. "Everyone said it wasn't my fault. That it was just a terrible thing that happened. But I knew. I knew she was leaving because of me. Because I was bad and said mean things and she didn't want to be my mommy anymore."
The tears came then, silent and devastating. Her whole body shook with them.
I moved without thinking, pulling her into my arms. She collapsed against me, her face pressed into my shoulder, and sobbed like the child she was—the child she'd been forced to stop being four years ago.
"It's not your fault," I said into her hair. "Iris, listen to me. None of this is your fault."
"But I told her I hated her—"
"Kids say that. All kids say that when they're mad. It doesn't mean anything." I held her tighter, feeling her tears soak through my shirt. "Your mom made her own choices. Adult choices. Nothing you said or didn't say could have changed them."
"But if I'd been better—"
"No." I pulled back enough to look at her face, to make sure she could see me. "That's not how it works. You were a little kid. You are a little kid. It's not your job to be perfect so the adults in your life don't leave."
She stared at me, her face blotchy and wet.
"You want to know something?" I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended. "My dad left when I was seven. Just packed a bag one day and walked out. And for years—years, Iris—I thought it was because I wasn't good enough. Because if I'd been smarter or quieter or more helpful, he would have stayed."
Her she stared slightly.
"But that's bullshit." The word slipped out before I could stop it. "Sorry. But it is. Because here's the thing—adults who leave? They're not leaving because of their kids. They're leaving because of themselves. Because of choices they made and problems they have that have nothing to do with you."
"But Mommy said—"
"Your mom was unhappy. That's sad, and it's terrible, but it wasn't your fault. She married your dad for the wrong reasons, and that was her choice. She decided to leave, and that was her choice too. You didn't make her do any of it."
Iris's chin trembled. "Everyone says she loved me."
"I'm sure she did." I brushed her hair back from her face, the way my own mother used to do when I was small and the world felt too big. "But loving someone doesn't mean you make good choices. It doesn't mean you don't hurt them. Love is—" I stopped, searching for words that wouldn't sound like a greeting card. "Love is complicated. And sometimes people love you and still leave. That doesn't mean you weren't enough."
"Then why did she go?"
"I don't know, sweetheart. I really don't." The endearment surprised me, but it felt right. "But I know it wasn't because of you. You were always enough. You are enough."
She leaned against me again, her breathing gradually slowing. The sobs turned to hiccups, then to silence. I held her and stared at the wall, at the photos of her and Dominic at various ages—birthday parties, holidays, ordinary moments that suddenly felt precious and fragile.
How long had she been carrying this? Four years of thinking she'd driven her mother away. Four years of trying to be perfect and quiet and good enough to somehow undo what had already happened.
That tracks, I thought bitterly. Of course the kid would blame herself. Of course she'd think if she just tried harder, was better, made herself smaller, everything would be okay.
I knew that particular brand of magical thinking intimately.
"Sloane?" Iris's voice was muffled against my shoulder.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think Daddy knew? That Mommy didn't love him?"
My heart clenched. "I think—" I chose my words carefully. "I think your dad loved your mom very much. And sometimes when you love someone, you don't see things clearly. You see what you want to see."
"Is that why he's been so sad?"
"Probably." I stroked her hair, feeling the weight of what she'd just told me settling into my bones. "But Iris, listen. Your dad has been sad because he thought he failed your mom somehow. He thought if he'd been different or better, she wouldn't have left. Sound familiar?"
She nodded against me.
"So you've both been carrying the same lie. Both thinking you weren't enough." I pulled back again, made her look at me. "But you were. Both of you. Your mom's choices were about her, not about either of you."
"Will you tell him?" Her voice was small. "What I told you?"
"Do you want me to?"
She thought about it, her face scrunched up in concentration. "I don't know. Maybe. I don't want him to be sad anymore."
"He's your dad. You can tell him yourself, when you're ready. Or I can tell him. Or we can tell him together." I squeezed her hand. "Whatever feels right to you."
"Together," she whispered. "But not right now. I'm really tired."
"Okay. Not right now."
I helped her under the covers, tucked them around her like she was much younger than nine. She curled on her side, her eyes already drooping.
"Sloane?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for not saying the nice thing."
My throat tightened. "Yeah, no. The nice thing is usually bullshit anyway."
She smiled, just a little, and closed her eyes.
I stood in the doorway, watching her breathe, and tried to process what I'd just heard.
Victoria had never loved Dominic. Had married him because she was pregnant and he was rich. Had been planning to leave him the night she died.
Jesus Christ.
All this time, he'd been torturing himself over a marriage that had been a lie from the start. Blaming himself for not being enough, not seeing that he'd never had a chance. That she'd never given him one.
And Iris. God, Iris had been carrying this alone for four years, thinking she'd driven her mother away with a single angry sentence.
The unfairness of it made my hands shake.
I turned to leave, to give Iris space to sleep, and nearly walked straight into Dominic.
He stood in the hallway, his face pale, his eyes fixed on something I couldn't see. His hand gripped the doorframe like he needed it to stay upright.
"How long have you been standing there?" My voice came out sharper than I intended.
"Long enough." His voice was barely audible. "She's been carrying that? All this time?"
I stepped into the hallway, pulled the door mostly closed behind me. "Yeah."
"Four years." He said it like he was testing the words, seeing if they made sense. "She's been silent for four years because she thought—" He stopped, his jaw working. "Because she thought it was her fault."
"Kids do that. They make everything about themselves because they don't understand yet that adults are just as fucked up as everyone else."
He flinched at the language, but didn't correct me. His eyes moved to the partially open door, to where Iris lay sleeping.
"I need to—" He started toward the door.
I caught his arm. "She's asleep. And she's exhausted. Let her rest."
"But I need to tell her—"
"Tell her what? That you heard? That you know?" I kept my voice low, conscious of the sleeping child on the other side of the door. "She knows you love her, Dominic. She's always known that. What she needs right now is sleep, not another emotional conversation."
He looked at me, and something in his expression made my chest ache. "She thought she wasn't enough."
"Yeah."
"Because Victoria—" He stopped again, shook his head. "I spent four years believing I failed her. That if I'd been different, more attentive, less focused on work, she wouldn't have—" His voice cracked. "But she never loved me. Not once. Not ever."
I should have let go of his arm. Should have stepped back, given him space. Instead, I found myself moving closer.
"You can't save people from their own choices," I said quietly. "Trust me. I've tried."
"Have you?" He looked at me, really looked at me, and I felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with the physical space between us. "Or have you just been punishing yourself for not being able to?"
The words hit harder than they should have. I dropped his arm, took that step back I should have taken thirty seconds ago.
"This isn't about me."
"Isn't it?" He didn't move closer, but his eyes held mine. "You told Iris that adults who leave aren't leaving because of their kids. That they're leaving because of themselves. Do you believe that?"
"I—" The words stuck in my throat. "Yeah. I do."
"Then why are you still carrying your father's choices like they're weights you're supposed to bear?"
I wanted to tell him to fuck off. To mind his own business. To stop looking at me like he could see straight through every defense I'd ever built.
Instead, I said, "Because it's easier than admitting I was never going to be enough for him to stay. That nothing I did or didn't do would have changed anything."
The admission hung between us, raw and terrible.
"Sloane—"
"Don't." I held up a hand. "I just spent twenty minutes telling a nine-year-old that she's not responsible for her mother's choices. I don't need you to tell me the same thing."
"That's not what I was going to say."
"Then what?"
He was quiet for a long moment, his eyes searching my face. "I was going to say thank you. For telling her the truth instead of the nice thing. For giving her what she needed instead of what was comfortable."
Something in my chest loosened, just slightly.
"She's a good kid," I said. "She deserves the truth."
"She does." He glanced at the door again, then back at me. "And so do I. Victoria never loved me. She married me because I was convenient. Because I could give her the life she wanted."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." His voice was steady now, stronger. "I spent four years thinking I killed her. That my failures as a husband drove her to get in that car, to drive too fast, to—" He stopped, took a breath. "But she was leaving anyway. She'd already decided. Nothing I did or didn't do would have changed that."
The parallel wasn't lost on me. We stood there in the hallway, two people who'd spent years blaming themselves for things that were never their fault, finally starting to understand that maybe—maybe—we'd been carrying the wrong weight all along.
"So what now?" I asked.
"Now I go in there—" He nodded toward Iris's room. "And I wait until she wakes up. And I tell her that she was always enough. That she's always been more than enough. That nothing she said or did could have changed what Victoria chose."
"She'll believe you. Eventually."
"Will she?" He looked at me again, and there was something vulnerable in his expression that made my breath catch. "Will you?"
"Believe what?"
"That you're enough. That you always have been."
I wanted to deflect. To make a joke or change the subject or walk away. But standing there in the dim hallway, with Iris sleeping on one side and Dominic looking at me like I was something precious and breakable, I couldn't quite manage it.
"I'm working on it," I said finally. "So."
"So," he echoed, and almost smiled.
The air between us felt heavy, charged with everything we weren't saying. I was acutely aware of how close he was standing, of the way his eyes kept dropping to my mouth before returning to my eyes. Of the fact that we were alone in a hallway in the middle of the night, and no one would know if I closed the distance between us.
But Iris was sleeping ten feet away. And we'd both just had our worlds rearranged. And this—whatever this was—deserved better than a hallway and exhaustion and the weight of too many revelations.
I stepped back. "You should sit with her. When she wakes up, she'll want to see you."
"And you?"
"I'll be downstairs. Or—" I gestured vaguely. "Somewhere. Not here."
"Sloane—"
His phone rang.
The sound was jarring in the quiet hallway, too loud and too sharp. He pulled it from his pocket, glanced at the screen, and went completely white.
"What?" I moved closer without thinking. "Who is it?"
"Marcus." His voice was flat. "He says he has something I'll want to see before the police find him."
My stomach dropped. "Don't answer it."
But he was already opening the message, his thumb moving across the screen. I watched his face change—watched the color drain from it completely, watched his jaw clench, watched something that looked like horror flash across his features.
"Dominic?"
He turned the phone so I could see.
It was a photo of a death certificate. The name at the top read "Catherine Whitley." My mother's name. My mother's death certificate, which I'd never seen, which had been filed away in some government office years ago.
But that wasn't what made my blood turn to ice.
In the margin, in handwriting I didn't recognize, someone had written: "Ask Dominic what really happened."