Relativity by Antonia Hayes Read Free Book Online Page A

darling.”
    â€œMaybe I am. They call me a freak all the time.” Despite Ethan’s efforts to appear composed, Claire heard his voice start to tremble. “He said it was all my fault. Because I’m a freak.”
    â€œWhat was?”
    â€œNever mind.” Ethan pulled the bedclothes over his face. His voiced was muffled but she just made out what he said. “That he left.”
    It took a moment for Claire to register. Sometimes that pain struck her like a cramp—some spasm of ancient trauma. If anyone were at fault, it was Mark. But Claire understood the irrationality of feeling responsible. She felt it too. “You were four months old when he left. You were just a baby. It wasn’t your fault.”
    â€œHow do you know?” Ethan pulled the sheet down his torso. His T-shirt had gathered up around his chest, exposing his belly button. “Did he tell you? You don’t talk about him, Mum. You never told me why he left. Or where he is. Or if he’s coming back.”
    Claire’s stomach twisted as she remembered the letter. “Let’s talk about it when I’m home from work,” she said. Ethan had a mathematical clock on his bedroom wall—fractions and equations instead of numbers—and she couldn’t figure out the actual time.
    â€œYou always do this,” Ethan complained. “You always change the subject.”
    â€œI know you’re curious. But it’s complicated. You’re not going to understand yet.”
    Ethan crossed his arms and looked her steadily in the eye. “You don’t understand. You make everything worse. I hate it. He’s my dad.”
    Claire felt hollow. His dad. Mark didn’t deserve the word; he’d never really been a dad, especially the kind Ethan needed or deserved. It hurt Claire that she wasn’t enough, that her son felt something was missing.
    â€œYou act like he doesn’t exist,” Ethan continued, his voice quieter. “He’s my father. And I’ve never heard you say his name out loud.”
    Claire could see Ethan searching her face for a response. She stared at her son’s features so much, she knew the exact location, size, and color of every freckle on his face. Quark chewed a sock on the floor.
    â€œI’ve got to go to work,” she said quickly, rescuing the sock from the rabbit.
    Ethan climbed out of bed, ignoring his mother. He stomped down the hall, his footsteps echoing, and slammed the bathroom door. She heard him piss loudly into the toilet bowl.
    Claire lingered behind, fixing the sheets on Ethan’s bed.
    â€œMark,” she said into the empty room. “Your father’s name is Mark.”
    Î©
    THE LAST TIME Claire had seen Mark, they didn’t speak to each other. The room was crowded and she didn’t want to approach him. Mostly she knew that she shouldn’t, but she also didn’t know what to say. There were too many things she wanted to tell him, conflicting things: that she hated him but still loved him, that she hated herself for loving him, that she was comforted by hatred she couldn’t help but feel. She’d wanted to slap and hold him at the same time.
    Mark knew she was there, but went out of his way to avoid eye contact. He was nervous—understandably—she could tell by the way he incessantly pulled at his hair. Claire knew him so well, every idiosyncrasy. How he tugged at a strand of hair when he was worried; the way he chewed on the ends of pencils when he concentrated; the way he gestured like a conductor when he was excited. She stared at Mark while he looked down at his feet. That swollen silence was excruciating. They were only meters away from each other but already light-years apart.
    How could you know somebody so entirely, so intimately, one minute and then suddenly not at all? The solidity of their love, even the shape of it, had been deceptive: Claire thought it was circular when it was