The drive from Minneapolis to Saint Paul took less than thirty minutes.
For most of those thirty minutes, I sat in the back of my black SUV with a photograph balanced on my knees, trying to understand how the distance between my office and my former wife’s life could be so small.
Three years.
I had spent three years believing Jasmine Carter had disappeared because she couldn’t handle the pressures of being married to me.
That was the explanation my mother offered.
It was the explanation my colleagues quietly accepted.
And eventually, it became the explanation I repeated to myself.
Jasmine hadn’t understood my responsibilities.
Jasmine wanted too much attention.
Jasmine couldn’t accept the risks and sacrifices required to build an empire.
Looking down at the photograph, I began to recognize those statements for what they were.
Excuses.
Jasmine hadn’t asked me to stop working.
She’d asked me to come home sometimes.
She hadn’t demanded expensive presents.
She’d asked me to remember our anniversary.
She hadn’t objected to my success.
She’d wanted to feel as though she was part of it.
And when she’d stood in our bathroom doorway holding something in her hands, I’d told her that everything was important when I was working.
I stared at the twins.
Two and a half years old.
A little boy in a blue jacket.
A little girl wearing pink mittens.
The girl’s eyes looked so familiar that I couldn’t bear to study them for long.
“Raymond.”
He turned from the passenger seat.
“Yes, boss?”
“Tell me what you found.”
He hesitated.
I looked at him.
“Everything.”
Raymond opened the folder resting on his lap.
“The man who answered the phone is Elijah Carter. Thirty-eight. He works as a pediatric physical therapist.”
I felt my jaw tighten.
“Her husband?”
“According to the information available, yes. They married eleven months ago.”
I looked out the window.
Eleven months.
Jasmine had remarried.
She hadn’t spent three years waiting for me to realize my mistake.
She’d built a new life.
One in which another man apparently knew when to come home.
“How long have they been together?”
“I can’t establish exactly when the relationship began. The marriage is documented, but that doesn’t tell us everything.”
I nodded.
For once, I appreciated Raymond’s refusal to pretend he knew more than he did.
“And the children?”
His expression softened.
“Their names are Noah and Nora.”
My throat tightened.
“Noah and Nora.”
He nodded.
I repeated the names silently.
Noah.
Nora.
Names I had never spoken.
Names that might belong to my own son and daughter.
Raymond turned another page.
“Jasmine works part-time at a community arts center. She also does freelance illustration.”
I closed my eyes.
Illustration.
Before we married, Jasmine painted.
She used to spread brushes and watercolor paper across the dining-room table.
Sometimes I’d come home and find little pictures taped to the refrigerator.
A mountain landscape.
A street scene.
Once, a drawing of me sleeping in an armchair.
She called it The Man Who Never Rests.
I laughed when she gave it to me.
Then asked her to remove the paintings from our formal dining room because investors were coming to dinner.
I could still remember her expression.
Not anger.
Just the quiet disappointment of someone discovering that her life was welcome only when it remained invisible.
“Anything else?” I asked.
Raymond looked toward me.
“She’s renting a small house. The neighborhood is quiet. The children appear to attend a local preschool program a few mornings a week.”
I frowned.
“Appear?”
“Marcus, I don’t know their daily arrangements, and I’m not going to send anyone to watch a preschool.”
I looked at him.
He continued.
“I’ve already done enough looking into her private life to understand that we should stop and let her decide what she wants to share.”
I stared at him.
Twelve years at my side.
Raymond had carried out difficult assignments without hesitation.
But now he was pushing back.
Not because he was afraid of me.
Because two children were involved.
I nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
He looked relieved.
“I don’t want anyone following her.”
“Understood.”
“And no photographs of the children.”
Raymond glanced at the picture in my hands.
“That image was already in circulation. I won’t obtain anything further.”
I looked down.
For the first time, I felt ashamed of having asked him to investigate Jasmine in the first place.
Three years of silence.
Then one afternoon, I’d decided I was entitled to know what had become of her.
I had used money and people to obtain an answer rather than doing the simple, uncomfortable thing.
Calling her.
And when I finally called, another man answered.
A man she trusted enough to marry.
The SUV turned onto a residential street lined with bare trees.
Snow remained along the sidewalks.
Small houses stood behind neatly trimmed hedges.
Christmas lights still hung from one porch, though the season had ended weeks earlier.
Raymond glanced toward me.
“We’re close.”
I looked out at the neighborhood.
Then said:
“Don’t pull up in front of her house.”
He turned.
“Boss?”
“Find somewhere public to park.”
Raymond nodded.
A minute later, the car stopped near a small neighborhood park.
Children were playing beside a snow-covered path.
A mother pushed a stroller toward a coffee shop.
Two men walked dogs along the sidewalk.
Ordinary life.
The kind Jasmine had once begged me to share with her.
I looked at Raymond.
“Do you have a way to contact her without disturbing the children?”
He hesitated.
“I have an email address associated with her illustration work.”
I took a breath.
“Give it to me.”
He did.
I opened my phone.
For several minutes, I stared at the empty message.
Then I began typing.
Jasmine, it’s Marcus.
I stopped.
Deleted the sentence.
Started again.
I know I have no right to appear in your life without warning. I recently learned about Noah and Nora. I don’t know whether they’re my children, and I realize I should have spoken to you years ago rather than asking someone to investigate you now.
My hands were shaking.
I continued.
I’m in Saint Paul, but I will not come to your home uninvited. If you’re willing to speak, I’ll meet wherever you feel comfortable. If you don’t want to see me today, I’ll leave.
I stared at the message.
Then added:
I’m sorry for how I treated you.
I sent it.
For the first time in years, there was nothing else I could do.
No employee to instruct.
No contract to negotiate.
No executive to pressure.
I simply had to wait for another person to decide whether she wanted to speak to me.
Twenty minutes later, my phone vibrated.
You have five minutes to explain why you’re here. Riverside Coffee. Come alone.
I stared.
Then looked at Raymond.
“She’s agreed to meet.”
He nodded.
“Do you want me nearby?”
“No.”
I opened the car door.
“For once, I need to handle something myself.”
Riverside Coffee was a small café with mismatched chairs and a chalkboard menu.
It smelled of cinnamon, espresso, and fresh bread.
The windows looked toward a quiet street leading down to the river.
Jasmine sat at a table near the back.
I recognized her immediately.
Her hair was shorter.
She wore a green sweater and dark jeans.
There were faint lines near her eyes that hadn’t been there when we were married.
But the most striking difference was how she held herself.
She looked comfortable.
Not carefree.
Not untouched by difficulty.
But comfortable in her own skin.
When she saw me, she didn’t stand.
I approached slowly.
“Jasmine.”
“Marcus.”
Her voice was calm.
I stopped beside the chair.
“May I sit?”
She gestured toward it.
I sat down.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
She looked at my suit.
My watch.
The expensive coat I’d carried over one arm.
Then she gave a small, humorless smile.
“Still dressing like a board meeting might break out at any moment.”
I looked down.
“Some habits are difficult to change.”
She didn’t smile.
“What do you want?”
I took a breath.
“I found out about the twins.”
Her expression changed.
The warmth disappeared.
“How?”
I hesitated.
Then answered honestly.
“I asked Raymond to find out how you were doing.”
She stared.
“You had someone investigate me?”
“Yes.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Of course you did.”
“Jasmine—”
“You couldn’t call me like a normal person?”
The words struck harder than I expected.
I looked down.
“No.”
She folded her arms.
“At least that’s honest.”
I took a breath.
“Are Noah and Nora mine?”
She stared at me for a long time.
Then looked toward the window.
When she spoke, her voice was very quiet.
“Do you remember the day I asked you to come to the doctor?”
I closed my eyes.
“Yes.”
“You sent a driver.”
“I remember.”
She nodded.
“Do you remember what I said?”
I swallowed.
“That you needed your husband.”
Her eyes filled.
“And what did you tell me?”
I looked at my hands.
“That I had a meeting.”
She laughed.
Not happily.
It sounded like something breaking.
“You had a meeting.”
I nodded.
She continued.
“I’d spent the morning at the clinic. I was terrified. I didn’t know whether everything was okay.”
My throat tightened.
“Was that when you found out?”
She nodded.
“That I was pregnant with twins.”
I stared at her.
There it was.
The answer I’d been afraid to hear.
I couldn’t speak.
Jasmine looked directly at me.
“They were yours, Marcus.”
My chest tightened so violently that I had to lean forward.
She continued.
“Both of them.”
For a moment, the noise of the café disappeared.
My son.
My daughter.
Not an abstract possibility anymore.
Jasmine was telling me that Noah and Nora were my children.
I pressed my hands together.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her face hardened.
“Don’t.”
I looked up.
She shook her head.
“Don’t sit there and ask me that like I disappeared for no reason.”
I swallowed.
“I’m sorry.”
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