That hurt more than accusation.
“Emily, I believe you.”
Her laugh was barely a breath. “Now?”
There it was.
One word, and I deserved every edge of it.
I sat slowly, keeping distance between us.
“Yes,” I said. “Now. Too late, but completely.”
She stared at the blanket. “Your mother said you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
“She had papers.”
“They were forged.”
“She had messages.”
“Not from me.”
“She knew things only you knew.”
That stopped me.
“What things?”
Emily’s fingers tightened over the blanket. “About the night in Vermont. About the song you played when the power went out. About the name we said we would use if we ever had a daughter.”
A coldness moved through me.
No one knew about Vermont except us.
No one.
“What name?” I asked softly.
Her eyes snapped to mine. Hurt flared.
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember,” I said. “I need to know exactly what she said.”
Emily studied me, searching for a trick, a cruelty, anything familiar from the version of me who had signed away our marriage with a face like stone.
Finally, she whispered, “Rose.”
I closed my eyes.
Rose Mercer, we had said once, laughing in a cabin while snow erased the world outside. Rose because Emily’s grandmother had grown roses in cracked clay pots on a fire escape in Queens. Mercer because back then she still believed my name could become something gentle in her mouth.
“How did she know?” Emily asked.
“I don’t know.”
But a memory stirred.
A phone on the counter in Vermont. My jacket thrown over a chair. A call from the office I had ignored. My mother’s assistant later mentioning she had been unable to reach me that weekend.
Had someone been listening then?