Hannah set down her coffee cup and turned to face Janie fully. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I got so consumed by the girls and trying to be a perfect mother that I forgot how to be a wife.”
“We both got lost,” Janie said quietly. “I don’t think either of us meant for it to happen. It just...did.”
“But we can find our way back,” Hannah said. “Can’t we?”
Janie’s chest tightened at the uncertainty in Hannah’s voice. This was the moment. This was when she needed to tell the truth, when she needed to trust that Hannah meant what she’d been saying all evening about seeing her, about working together, about finding their way back.
“Hannah,” Janie said, then faltered. Her hands shook, and coffee sloshed to the edges of her cup.
Hannah took it from her and set it on the side table, then captured both of Janie’s hands in hers. “Hey. What is it? What’s wrong?”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Janie whispered.
Hannah’s expression shifted. Her concern gave way to a flickering of fear, but there was also something solid and steady in her gaze.
“Okay,” Hannah said. “I’m listening.”
Janie tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. She’d rehearsed this most of the previous night in her depressing apartment. But now, faced with actually saying it out loud, her throat closed up.
“Whatever it is,” Hannah said gently, “we can handle it. Together. I promise to be here for you.”
Janie closed her eyes and tried to force back her tears. “You might want to rescind that promise,” she whispered, “when you hear what I did.”
“Janie.” Hannah placed her finger under Janie’s chin and tipped her face gently. “Look at me.”
Janie forced herself to open her eyes.
“Whatever you’re carrying,” Hannah said, “whatever you haven’t told me, I need you to trust me with it. Trust that I can handle it.”
Janie took a shaky breath. Then another. Hannah waited, patient and present and solid in a way that made Janie want to both run away and stay forever. “It was the Saturday of the memorial for Rosie’s mom,” she finally said, her voice barely audible.
Hannah nodded and didn’t say anything. No doubt she’d remember the two-day argument they’d had about Hannah attending it alone.
“I was so tired,” Janie said, the words starting to come faster now. “We’d been up until the early hours of the morning, arguing. And I’d had a month of late nights dealing with that nightmare IP case. You left early for the memorial, and the girls were fussy, and I just...” Her voice broke.
Hannah squeezed her hands but still didn’t speak.
“I got them breakfast and then tried to play with them, but I was barely functioning. I put one of their favorite movies on, and I sat down on the couch. Just for a minute. Just to rest my eyes.” She gave up trying to fight the tears, and the hot burn of her guilt tracked down her face. “But I fell asleep. I completely fell asleep, Han. With three eighteen-month-olds running around.”
“Okay.” Hannah traced slow, small circles on Janie’s hand. “What happened?”
“I don’t know how long I was out. Maybe twenty minutes. Maybe longer. When I woke up, it was because Tia was pullingon my arm, and she looked scared. And I realized…” Janie clutched her chest, sinking deeper into her panic as she relived the day. “I realized Chloe wasn’t in the room.”
Hannah’s grip on Janie’s hands tightened, but her expression remained steady and focused.
“I checked everywhere. The kitchen, the playroom, their bedroom. And then I heard something in the girls’ bathroom, the one we’d been meaning to finish childproofing but hadn’t gotten to yet.” Janie’s chest constricted, pressing against her lungs and making it almost impossible to get the next words out. “The cabinet under the sink was open. And Chloe was sitting on the floor with a bottle of children’s Tylenol. The purple kind. And there was...” She swiped at the mucus running from her nose as she began to sob. “There was purple around her mouth and on her hands. The bottle was mostly empty.”
Hannah’s face had gone very pale, but she didn’t let go of Janie’s hand.
“I tried to see how much she’d taken. Had the bottle been new or not? I couldn’t remember. I tried to get her to spit it out, but whatever she’d put in her mouth was gone. And I just...I lost it. I was screaming and crying, Luna and Tia were crying because I was scaring them, and Chloe started crying because everyone else was crying.”
“What did you do?” Hannah asked.
Janie blinked through her tears and tried to focus on Hannah. Her expression was still calm, but her tension pressed against Janie’s soul. “I called 911, and they told me to bring her to the ER immediately. So I loaded all three girls in the car, and I drove to Northwestern. I was shaking so hard I could barely hold the steering wheel.” The force of the sob that followed as she placed herself in that memory could’ve broken her ribs. “They took Chloe back right away, checked her blood levels, and made her drink activated charcoal. They said she hadn’t ingested enough to cause liver damage, and that she’d be fine. But that I needed to be more careful about childproofing. That I was lucky thistime.” She wrapped her arms around herself, though she didn’t deserve the comfort. She should suffer like she’d made Chloe suffer when she’d vomited from the treatment. “They reported it to CPS, obviously, and they called me that evening to say it’d been screened out, and they wouldn’t be pursuing the case. They said accidents happen.”
Hannah was very still, her face unreadable.
“And then you came home,” Janie whispered. “Gabe had texted me to say you’d left the memorial, but you didn’t get back for another five or six hours. I heard the door slam, heard you stumble upstairs and trip on the landing. I cracked my door open to make sure you were okay, and you tried to get in the room.” She shook her head. “You were so drunk. You reeked of alcohol like someone’d smashed a bottle of bourbon over your head.”
