Chapter 7

Richard liked the shape of his life. Another baby could tip it over.

And then Vivienne told him, almost shyly, that she too wanted a child.

She just didn't want to be pregnant.

Then the idea came to him. Fully formed. Elegant, he thought.

Put his and Vivienne's embryo inside Josephine.

Josephine wanted a child. Vivienne didn't want to carry one. Josephine had already shown, through that first doomed baby, that her genes were weak anyway — that heart defect had come from somewhere.

Everyone got what they wanted. The child would have better genes. Wouldn't suffer the way their first son had. And he'd grow up with two mothers, loved twice over.

He pitched it to Vivienne that night.

As he'd guessed, his soulmate didn't hesitate.

They made appointments at a top fertility center in Manhattan. They used separate accounts. They paid in cash where they had to. And when the cycle took, Josephine was told, gently, it was a miracle. She wept with joy. They let her weep.

Ethan was born.

And for the first time in years, Josephine's face glowed.

She was, in every way that mattered, that little boy's mother. For the first ten years of his life, Ethan recognized no one but her.

Then came Vivienne's subtle complaints. A comment here. A sigh there.

Richard started seeing it her way. Josephine was working hard, fine. But the real mother was Vivienne. She didn't have the name. She couldn't have her son avoid her on top of that.

So Richard began pulling Ethan in Vivienne's direction.

A ten-year-old is easy enough. Josephine was the one enforcing homework and piano practice. All Richard had to do was make sure every trip to the Yankees game, every new PlayStation, every weekend at the Hamptons, came from Aunt Vivienne.

Slowly, Ethan migrated.

By the time he was a teenager, he confided in Vivienne first. When he started dating Caroline, Vivienne was the first person in the family to know.

Just as Richard had designed: two mothers. With his favorite on top.

As for Josephine — she was good at running a household. That was valuable. Vivienne was the one for emotional guidance anyway. Even if Josephine knew, Richard told himself, she'd understand. It was better for the child.

The years passed. Occasionally Josephine grated on him; he'd vent to Vivienne and come back soothed. By his own math, Josephine owed Vivienne gratitude for preserving her marriage.

When Ethan announced the wedding, Richard had, briefly, wondered if he should finally tell Josephine the truth.

Ethan was Vivienne's biological child, yes. But Josephine had poured forty years into him. He and Josephine were still, technically, married. She belonged at that wedding.

He raised it with Ethan.

Ethan, to Richard's shock, was the first to shut it down.

"I don't want her anywhere near the wedding. She's embarrassing. If Caroline really looked at her, she might not go through with it."

"For the sake of my marriage, Dad — just keep her home. She knows how to scrub and mop. Let her stick to that."

"This is a high-profile crowd. Vivienne needs to handle the public side. Could you imagine Mom wandering off to the catering tent to wash dishes? I'd die."

"Please. I need you to back me and Vivienne on this. Don't tell her."

"Once Caroline and I are solid, then you can introduce Mom."

Richard had been furious at first.

He wanted Ethan close to Vivienne, sure. He hadn't wanted Ethan this brutal about Josephine.

However you sliced it, Josephine was Ethan's mother on paper. For her to be absent from the wedding would have been a scandal.

Then Vivienne appeared in the doorway, eyes already filling.

Richard couldn't remember the last time she'd cried in front of him.

She held his hands and whispered, "Richard. Let me have this. Ethan agrees. I am his mother."

Her voice got smaller. "In thirty years, he's never once called me Mom. He's almost thirty years old."

"I just want to hear it once. That's all I want. Once."

"After Caroline is in the family, she'll call Josephine Mom for the rest of their lives. I'm asking for one day."

"Please, Richard. Please."

Richard wavered after the first sentence. By the end, he'd caved.

If he'd met Vivienne first, he thought, none of this would have been so complicated.

And she was right. Biologically, she was Ethan's mother. The one they'd hidden for thirty years.

He owed her this.

So he let it happen.

He had not expected Josephine to find out. He certainly had not expected her to find out the way she did — outside Carnegie Hall.

Standing across from her after the concert, faced with that dead look in her eyes and that crushed cancer report in her fist, he had felt, briefly, guilt.

That was why he'd said the things he said.

The cruelty had been the coverup.

His chest tightened as he remembered it.

But the wedding crowd was roaring applause somewhere. The memory released him.

"Dad. I'm nervous," Ethan said, leaning over. "Good thing it's Vivienne today. Caroline was just saying how elegant she is. Could you imagine if it was Mom?"

Richard felt a flash of something sour.

He knew, logically, that whoever played the role of mother at the ceremony wouldn't affect the marriage. The people getting married were Ethan and Caroline. Not Vivienne, not Josephine.

Still.

"How can you talk about her like that? She's still your mother."

Ethan rolled his eyes. "I'd rather she wasn't."

"Ethan —"

"Forget it. Caroline's coming in. I gotta go." And he was gone.

Richard sat there, no longer sure who the villain of this story was.

Then the piano began — the soft, clean opening of the processional.

Ethan's sour expression slid off and was replaced by pure open delight as his bride came down the aisle.

And Richard, watching him, remembered his own wedding. Forty years ago. To Josephine.