Mara answered that Sadie had just won a school science prize and had spent the previous weekend making a cardboard planetarium.
She added that their daughter used a cane on difficult days but usually preferred racing her friends across the playground.
Julian flinched at that description, revealing he knew far more about Sadie's life than his supposed ignorance allowed.
Mara asked him whether he still had the drawings Sadie had mailed him every birthday, and he refused to answer.
My mind returned to a locked drawer in Julian's office, where he had once snatched a child's drawing from my hands.
He told me it belonged to a colleague's daughter, then joked that I had become suspicious since becoming a mother.
That memory had seemed meaningless until now, when I could finally see the strange urgency behind his smile.
Chloe demanded to know how Mara had obtained her phone number, and Mara said she had found it on a public business page.
