Chapter 21
He laughed bitterly.
“We were very good at not knowing.”
I looked away.
“Why didn’t you keep searching?”
His silence answered before he did.
“Pride.”
“Yes.”
I shook my head.
“You crossed a thousand miles and then stopped because a landlord closed a door?”
“I told myself if you wanted me to know where you were, you would have left something.”
“I was protecting myself.”
“I know that now.”
“You could have tried harder.”
“Yes.”
His voice was barely audible.
“I should have.”
We started walking again.
After several minutes, Adrian said, “I want to ask you something, and you can say no.”
“That introduction is new.”
“I’m learning.”
“What?”
“Let me take them to my mother’s house Sunday.”
I stopped.
“Your mother knows?”
“She knows now.”
I imagined Teresa Moretti discovering she had grandchildren six years old.
“How did that conversation go?”
“She slapped me.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“She blamed me.”
“She knows you didn’t know they existed.”
“She said that apparently I had behaved badly enough that my wife preferred raising twins alone to calling me.”
I looked away because laughing felt cruel.
“I like your mother.”
“You always did.”
That was true.
“Does she blame me?”
“No.”
His answer came instantly.
“She cried for twenty minutes and then asked what they eat.”
My throat tightened.
“That also sounds like her.”
“They deserve to know their family.”
Fear moved through me again.
“Your family includes things I spent six years protecting them from.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Adrian stopped beneath a bridge.
“I am not asking you to accept my life.”
“Your life comes with you.”
“Yes.”
He did not deny it.
“But there are parts of it they never need to see.”
“You can promise that?”
“I can promise I will spend every day trying.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
I appreciated the honesty even when it terrified me.
“I won’t lie to you again about what I am.”
His eyes held mine.
“I can protect them from most of it.”
“Most.”
“I won’t promise perfection because that would be another lie.”
The wind moved between us.
I thought about Harvard.
About the photograph.
About how quickly Adrian had found us once he knew we existed.
Distance had never been perfect protection.
Maybe nothing was.
Sunday afternoon, I took Noah and Lily to Teresa Moretti’s home myself.
She opened the door before we reached it.
The moment she saw the twins, both hands flew to her mouth.