“Yes, something happened.” Ophélie stood in the open doorway, and pulled the letter from her pocket with hands that shook so violently, she could hardly control them. “I found your letter.” Her face got even paler, and was instantly matched by Andrea's. She made no attempt to deny it. They looked like two chalk women standing in the doorway, with the wind blowing in around them.

“Do you want to come in?” There were things to say, but Ophélie didn't want to hear them, and did not move from where she stood.

“How could you? How could you do that for a year, and pretend to be my friend? How could you have his baby and pretend it was from a sperm bank? How dare you say what you did about Chad to manipulate his father? You knew how Ted felt about him. It was all a manipulation, you probably didn't even love him. You don't love anyone, Andrea. Not me, not him, probably not even that poor baby. And you would have taken Chad from me, just to impress Ted, and he would have killed himself while you were playing games, using him as a lure. You're beyond pathetic. You're evil. You are the worst kind of human being. I hate you… you destroyed the only thing I had left… the belief that he loved me…he didn't… and you didn't love him either. I did. I always always loved him, no matter how rotten he was to me, or how much he wasn't there for me, or for his children…you don't love anything…my God, how could you do this?” She felt as though she were going to die standing there, but she no longer cared. They had destroyed her. It took them a year after his death, but even after his death, they had done it. Both of them. She couldn't even begin to understand why. “I want you to stay away from me… and from Pip… don't ever call us. Don't contact me. You're dead as far as I'm concerned. Forever. Just as dead as he is…do you hear me…” Ophélie's voice broke in a sob.

Andrea didn't argue with her, and she was shaking too, as she held the baby. They were both cold and in shock, and badly shaken, and Andrea knew she deserved it. She had worried endlessly about what he had done with the letter, but when it never surfaced, she assumed he had destroyed it, and hoped he had. But there was one last thing she wanted to say to the woman who had been her friend and never betrayed her.

“I want you to listen to me…I only have one thing to say to you other than that I am so sorry… I'll never forgive myself either, but at least the baby is worth it…it wasn't his fault.”

“I don't give a damn about you or your baby.” But the trouble was she did, about both of them, which was why this was so exquisitely painful, and even more so knowing that the baby was his…he even looked like him, she saw now…more than Chad had.

“Listen to me, Ophélie. And hear me. He hadn't made up his mind yet. He told me he didn't see how he could ever leave you, you had been so good to him in the beginning, and always, he knew that…he was a selfish man, he only did what he wanted to, and he wanted me, but I think he was only playing. We had a lot in common. I wanted him. I always did. And when I saw my chance, when you and the kids were in France, I took it. I grabbed it. He didn't. He walked right into it, but I'm not even sure he loved me. Maybe he didn't. He might never have left you. He hadn't decided. You have to know that. He did not die, having decided to leave you. He wasn't sure. That's why I wrote him the letter. I was trying to convince him. You can see that. He may well have decided to stay with you. I'm not sure he ever loved either of us, to tell you the truth. I'm not even sure he was capable of it. He was brilliant and narcissistic. I don't know if he loved me. But if he loved either of us, if he loved anyone, it was you. He said so. And I think he believed it. I always thought he was a shit to you, and you deserved better. But I do think, to the extent that he could, he loved you. And I want you to know that now.”

“Don't ever speak to me again.” Ophélie spat the words at her, and then turned, and on trembling legs she walked back down the stairs to her car. She had left it running on the sidewalk. She didn't look back at Andrea. She never wanted to see her again, and Andrea knew she wouldn't. Andrea was sobbing as she watched her drive off erratically, but at least she had told Ophélie the truth, as she knew it. Ted hadn't been sure what he was going to do. And he may have loved neither of them, but at least Ophélie deserved to know that he felt he owed her something, and might have stayed with her. Ophélie might well have been the winner and not the loser. But in the end, they had all lost. Ted, Chad, Ophélie, Andrea, and even her baby… all losers. He had died with the decision unmade, and instead of destroying the letter, he had left it for her to find it. Maybe he wanted her to. Maybe he expected her to. Maybe it was his way of manipulating the solution. Neither of them would ever know. But all Andrea had left to give her was the truth, that he wasn't sure, that he didn't know when he died…and that maybe… only maybe…he had loved her, as best he could.





21

OPHÉLIE NEVER KNEW HOW SHE DROVE BACK TO THE house, or how she got there. She parked the car in their driveway, and went inside. Pip was still sitting where she had left her on the steps, clinging to the dog.

“What happened? Where did you go?” If humanly possible, her mother looked even worse than she had half an hour earlier, and she felt sick again as she crawled up the stairs, and walked into her bedroom looking dazed.

“Nothing happened,” she said, with eyes that only stared, and a heart that had been gouged out with a single letter. They had done it together. He and Andrea. It had taken them a year, but they had finally killed her. Ophélie turned to look at Pip as though she couldn't see her. As though she was blind suddenly. The robot had returned, and it was utterly, totally broken, with sparks shooting everywhere, a system that had misfired and was self-destroying as Pip watched. “I'm going to bed now” was all she said to Pip, and then turned off the lights and lay there, staring into space. Pip would have screamed if she had dared, but she was afraid to make things even worse. She ran to her father's den then and dialed the phone. She was crying when he answered. He couldn't understand her at first, and he sounded unusually happy.

“Something happened… there's something wrong with my mother.” Matt came sharply to earth as he listened. He had never heard Pip sound like that, not even close. She was panicked, and he could hear the tremor in her voice.

“Is she hurt? Tell me quickly, Pip. Do you need to call 911?”

“I don't know. I think she's gone crazy. She won't tell me.” She described everything that had happened, and he asked to speak to her mother. But when she went back to her mother's room, the door was locked and she wouldn't answer. Pip was crying harder when she came back to speak to him on the phone. He didn't like the sound of any of it, but he was afraid to make matters worse by calling the police and having them break down the door. He told Pip to go back and knock again, and tell her he was on the phone.

Pip knocked for a long time, and she could finally hear a sound in the room. It sounded as though something had fallen down, like a lamp or a table, and then slowly she opened the door. She looked like she'd been crying, and still was, but she didn't look as crazed as she had half an hour before.

Pip looked at her in despair, and touched her hand as though to make sure she was real, and spoke in a shaking voice. “Matt's on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”

“Tell him I'm tired,” she said, looking down at her now-only child, as though seeing her for the first time. “I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry …” She finally understood what she was doing to her child, it was what they had done to her. “Tell him I can't talk right now. I'll call him tomorrow.”

“He says if you don't talk to him, he's coming in.” Ophélie wanted to tell her that she shouldn't have called him, but she knew Pip had no one else to call.

Ophélie didn't say another word, she walked back into her bedroom and picked up the phone. It was dark, but Pip could see the lamp she'd knocked over on the floor. It was the noise she had heard. She had stumbled in the dark.

“Hello.” It sounded like a voice from the dead, and Matt was as worried as Pip had been.

“Ophélie, what's happening? Pip is scared to death. Do you want me to come in?” She knew he would, all she had to do was ask, but she didn't want him or anyone else. Not even Pip. Not yet. Not right now. Or maybe ever. She had never felt so alone in her life, not even on the day he died.

“I'm all right,” she said unconvincingly. “Don't come in.”

“Tell me what happened.” He was firm, and strong.

“I can't.” It was the voice of a waif. “Not now.”

“I want you to tell me what's wrong.” She shook her head, and he could hear her sob. He was worried sick. “I'm coming in.”

“Please don't. I want to be alone.” She sounded saner again. She was coming in and out of some kind of hysteria, or panic, and he had no idea what it was.

“You can't do this to Pip.”

“I know…I know… I'm sorry …” She couldn't stop crying.

“I want to come in, but I don't want to intrude on you. I wish I knew what the hell is happening.”

“I can't talk about it now.”

“Do you think you can pull yourself together?” It sounded like she had snapped, and at that distance, he couldn't assess how bad it was. It sounded pretty bad to him. And he had no idea what had caused it. Maybe the holiday. Maybe she couldn't stand the reality of her double loss. What he didn't know was that it was now a treble loss, she had lost not only Ted and Chad, but all her illusions about their marriage as well. It was almost more than she could bear.