The Kindest Lie(18)
Cold air chilled her bare skin. “No, I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
She curled into a ball on the bed. Xavier could see her there in her sexy display, but he hadn’t reacted at all. Nothing. And why so many questions all of a sudden when they hadn’t spoken of the baby in weeks?
Quickly, she grabbed her terry cloth bathrobe and shoved her arms into it, too embarrassed to look up at him. His sudden, practical questions made her dizzy. Normally, she operated just as logically, applying the scientific method to every decision. As heavy a burden as her secret had been to carry alone all these years, Xavier’s probing seemed to double the load on her shoulders.
“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”
Laughing roughly, he said, “It’s not all of a sudden. You’ve had four years to come up with answers. The more I think about it, the more it burns me up that you could say nothing all these years. And now, when I’m trying to help, you don’t want to talk about the adoption papers.”
“I never signed any papers. I don’t even know his name.” Just admitting that carved out a pit at the base of her stomach. The image from her dreams of a wide-eyed, lost boy wandering the dirty streets of some big city made her nauseated.
When she’d gone home to Ganton the summer after her graduation from Yale, she’d seen little boys in the grocery store and at the bank and the post office and she’d felt a mix of fear and anxiety, wondering if a child standing near her in line could be hers. To this day, the backs of boys’ heads always caught her attention. She had become quite skilled at maneuvering until she saw their faces, the shapes of their eyes, the contours of their lips and noses. She even measured the heights of foreheads in her engineer’s mind, estimating how her son’s face had grown over time. And always, she looked for the birthmark on his left cheek. Parks and playgrounds toyed with her imagination the most, and she wondered if certain faces and smiles should feel familiar. But in reality, she doubted her son’s adoptive parents would’ve taken him somewhere else outside Ganton.
Xavier looked incredulous. “You don’t even know who he is or who’s raising him? How is that even possible?”
“I told you I was just a child myself,” she said, her voice thin and brittle.
“But you weren’t seven. You were seventeen and old enough to ask questions and keep some records.”
In all the years since she’d given birth, she’d convinced herself that na?veté explained her inaction. But Xavier’s words cut to the bone and revealed something she hadn’t considered—abject stupidity on her part. He hadn’t asked a direct question, so she didn’t give an answer. Her eyes roamed their bedroom and she looked everywhere she could except at him.
“Once you were grown, you still didn’t ask any questions about the adoption? And what about your grandmother and brother?”
There had been an agreement with Mama and Eli that they would take care of everything and she would go on with her life, never looking back. But now, that pact felt ridiculous, and seeing everything through her husband’s eyes, she felt embarrassed and couldn’t believe she’d let things go this long.
In a small voice, she said, “I did the best I knew how at the time.”
Forcing herself to hold his gaze, she looked into his deep-set light brown eyes. From the day they met at the art gallery, she’d always seen laughter and mischief in them. She searched them now for that warmth, but she could tell his stare would not thaw anytime soon.
Xavier sat with his legs wide apart, rapidly tapping both feet. She could sense his growing frustration. “I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me. I told you about my mom and how she used to step out on my dad when I was growing up. That’s something I never told anybody.” Pinning her with his eyes, he said, “Nobody. Except for you.”
Xavier worked his mouth the way he did when he had food stuck between his teeth. She turned away, realizing he was trying not to cry.
Shortly after their engagement, he had confided in her that prim and proper Mrs. Shaw had been unfaithful to her husband, to Xavier’s dad. From what Xavier had said, it wasn’t just a one-time slip-up, either. Apparently, she’d been “addicted” to the thrill of being pursued by various men.
His confession had torn at her insides. She imagined his humiliation, the way he always wondered as a kid what he’d done wrong to make his own mother turn away from her family. At the time, she’d vacillated between feeling endearment that he’d shared something so painful and guilt that she couldn’t or wouldn’t reciprocate.
Somehow their family recovered, and Ruth suspected that had a lot to do with Mr. Shaw’s deep capacity to forgive. Ruth hoped for similar forgiveness from Xavier.
She pulled the ties of her robe. “I don’t know what to say. I’m not as strong as you are.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” she said, hearing the pleading in her tone. “If I could turn back time, I’d tell you everything, but I can’t.”
Xavier stood above her, his arms folded across his chest. “Would you? Would you tell me about your kid? Because honestly, I don’t believe you would. I trusted you, Ruth, but you couldn’t trust me.”