“Did they argue?”
“Not that I saw.”
“What were they doing?”
“Mostly talking.”
She hesitated.
“There were usually papers spread around.”
Papers.
I immediately remembered the documents in Jack’s jacket.
“Can I see the security footage?”
“I can’t just show you hospital surveillance.”
“Then tell me who she was.”
“I honestly don’t know.”
After multiple conversations with hospital staff, I eventually gained access to footage from the hallway.
The first time I saw the woman, I knew immediately that I had never met her.
She walked into Jack’s room carrying a folder.
“How long was she in there?”
“Almost two hours.”
“And this recording?”
“The next day.”
“She’s crying.”
“Yes.”
“Were they alone?”
Rachel hesitated.
“Claire…”
“Were they?”
“Most of the time.”
For three days, I replayed everything in my mind.
The unexplained trips.
The late-night laptop sessions.
The papers he kept hiding.
The woman crying beside his hospital bed.
At two in the morning, lying alone in our bedroom, I whispered into the darkness,
“Were you cheating on me?”
I hated myself for asking a dead man.
The next afternoon, someone knocked on my door.
Lucy was coloring at the kitchen table.
“Mommy, who is it?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
I opened the door.
And there she was.
The woman from the hospital footage.
She held a sealed envelope against her chest.
“Are you Claire?”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Mara.”
“Why were you visiting my husband?”
“Jack asked me to bring you this.”
She offered me the envelope.
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I know.”
Her expression softened.
“He told me to give it to you only after he died. Not before.”
“What is it?”
Mara looked at me strangely.
“So you really don’t know what he left behind?”
That sentence frightened me more than the cardigan ever had.
I snatched the envelope from her hand.
The first page was written in Jack’s handwriting.
**Claire,**
**I’m sorry you have to learn this without me.**
**There is a five-year-old boy named Ethan.**
**You do not owe him anything. If you want to stop reading now, stop.**
**But if you find him, you’ll understand why I couldn’t walk away.**
**I’m sorry I never told you.**
I read the words twice.
Then looked at Mara.
“Ethan who?”
She said nothing.
“Is Ethan your son?”
“No.”
“Were you sleeping with Jack?”
“No.”
“Then who is he?”
“I can’t tell you.”
I actually laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
“You just came to the house of a pregnant widow carrying a letter from her dead husband telling her to find a five-year-old boy, and now you’re saying you can’t explain who he is?”
“Jack wanted you to decide whether you wanted to keep looking.”
“Why?”
“Because once you know the truth, you can’t unknow it.”
“Stop talking like you’re in some mystery movie.”
She flinched.
“You’re right.”
I crossed my arms.
“Who are you?”
Mara took a breath.
“I grew up in foster care.”
I waited.
“So did Jack.”
That stopped me.
Jack almost never talked about his childhood.
“You knew him then?”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“I work with children and families moving through the system.”
“Is that why you visited him?”
“Yes. I was helping him locate Ethan and understand what could be done.”
I swallowed.
“Then whose child is Ethan?”
Mara shook her head.
“I promised Jack I would not tell you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“He wanted you to choose whether you wanted the answer.”
“He’s dead. I’m pregnant. I have a four-year-old. Why would he do this?”
“Because he didn’t want another responsibility dropped into your lap while he was dying.”
I stared at her.
“Did my husband have another family?”
Mara looked miserable.
“That is exactly the question he made me promise not to answer.”
“So that means yes.”
“No. It means if you want the truth, you have to keep looking.”
Then she left.
By the time I closed the door, I had already decided what the answer was.
Jack had a son.
The next morning, I opened his laptop.
He had changed the password.
After twenty minutes of trying everything I could think of, I entered the date we first met.
The screen unlocked.
I stared at it.
“Seriously, Jack?”
Lucy looked up from the floor.
