Chapter 5 - The Cookies and the Truth
Margaret — Eleanor — insisted they stay for dinner. Renata refused twice. The third time, Grace tugged her sleeve. "Mama, I want to see the cookies."
Within twenty minutes, the quadruplets had transformed the war-museum atmosphere of the estate into something alive. Caleb discovered the grand staircase and asked whether sliding down the banister was a court-martial offense. Miles counted portraits of uniformed men and asked why none of the women had swords. Ivy found the library and nearly forgot the rest of them existed. Grace sat at the kitchen island decorating cookies with more frosting than architecture should allow.
Eleanor had removed her pearls. Flour dusted her sleeve. She looked younger, older, devastated, all at once.
"Are you sad because you missed us being babies?" Grace asked.
"Yes," Eleanor said softly. "Very sad."
"We cried a lot anyway. Mama says we sounded like tiny angry goats."
Eleanor laughed, and this time it held.
Marcus appeared in the doorway. "Can I talk to them?"
"Not alone," Renata said.
He stepped in. "I'm Marcus."
"We know," Caleb said.
"Why didn't you believe Mama?" Miles asked.
Marcus looked at Renata. She did not rescue him.
"I thought... she was trying to stop me from leaving," he said. "Because I was selfish. I wanted command. When she told me she was pregnant, I thought it meant my life would change in ways I didn't want."
There it was. The ugly, bare truth. Not a misunderstanding — a man who wanted freedom more than responsibility, and called disbelief a strategy.
"So you decided we weren't real?" Caleb's face hardened.
"Yes."
Grace pushed her cookie tray away. "I don't like that."
"No," Marcus whispered. "You shouldn't."
Miles studied him. "Are you sorry because you got caught, or because you hurt us?"
"At first, today, I was sorry because I got caught. Then I saw you. All of you. Now I'm sorry because I don't know how to survive knowing what I did."
No one spoke. It was the first honest thing he'd said all day.
Ivy closed her book. "Mama survived it."
"Yes," Marcus said quietly. "She did."
Later, alone with Renata in the library, he stood before the fireplace looking at a framed photo Eleanor had placed there — Renata at twenty, one hand tucked into his arm.
"I used to tell myself you became strong after I left," Marcus said.
"I was strong before. You just benefited from me not knowing it yet."
"I'm seeing someone," Renata said.
He blinked — the first time in years she'd managed to surprise him without documents or helicopters. "Is he good to you?"
"Yes."
"Do the children like him?"
May you like
"They adore him."
"I'm glad," Marcus said, quiet, painful, sincere.
