Chapter 10 - ALEX'S MOTHER CAME TO SEE ME
Alex’s mother, Diane, came to Rachel’s apartment.
I almost did not let her in.
Then I remembered she had always been kind to me.
She entered carrying baby clothes.
I stared at the bag.
“I’m not here to pressure you.”
She said quickly.
“Then why are you here?”
“To apologize.”
“For Alex?”
“No.”
“For me.”
I frowned.
Diane sat.
“When Valerie came back, I knew Alex was spending too much time with her.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because he told me you were jealous.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course.”
Diane looked ashamed.
“I believed him.”
“He said pregnancy made you anxious.”
“He said Valerie had no one.”
“I told him he was being kind.”
She wiped her eyes.
“I raised him to think being needed made him good.”
“That sounds harmless.”
“It wasn’t.”
Her voice became quieter.
“His father was the same.”
“Always saving someone.”
“Neighbors.”
“Coworkers.”
“Women with problems.”
“Meanwhile, I learned to solve my own problems because he was busy being a hero somewhere else.”
I understood instantly.
Alex had inherited a model.
Men who needed women to need them.
Competent wives became invisible because competence produced no emergency.
“I should have warned you.”
Diane said.
“You didn’t owe me foresight.”
“No.”
“But I owed you honesty when I saw history repeating.”
She pushed the baby clothes toward me.
I did not take them yet.
“Does Alex know you’re here?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She laughed through tears.
“You always were stronger than he deserved.”
I shook my head.
“Please don’t make strength another reason people can fail me.”
Diane went still.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
That sentence was becoming rare enough to notice.
Before leaving, she told me something.
Alex had been telling family that Valerie might be pregnant.
My body went cold.
“What?”
“He said she told him she was late.”
“When?”
“Before the elevator.”
I sat down.
Another layer.
Another reason he might have believed Valerie carried a responsibility toward him.
I called Dana.
Valerie was not pregnant.
Medical documentation later confirmed she had never been.
But Alex had believed it possible.
Which meant when he entered that elevator, he may have believed two women connected to him were pregnant.
One actually was.
May you like
One might have been.
He chose Valerie anyway.
