Chương 6
It jammed halfway.
Claire pulled it out, tried again, and jammed it worse.
Lucy sighed.
“You’re doing it crooked.”
“I’m having a difficult evening.”
“You always say not to blame things.”
Claire looked at her daughter.
Lucy’s hair had escaped its braid and formed a soft brown cloud around one ear.
There was a tiny scratch beside her chin from a playground argument with a shrub two days earlier.
Claire reached out and tucked the loose hair back.
“You’re right.”
Lucy squinted at her.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You look like it.”
“I’m not yet.”
That answer seemed to satisfy her more than a lie would have.
Claire finally seated the drawer correctly.
Lucy shoved it closed with both hands and selected the unicorn pajamas she had already been told were too small.
Claire let her.
“Can I have cookies?”
“No.”
“You’re having a difficult evening.”
“That is not a coupon.”
Lucy smiled.
Claire kissed her forehead and remained there a second longer than necessary, breathing in the strawberry shampoo she had complained was overpriced at the drugstore.
The possibility that anything about Lucy could be false seemed obscene.
Her birth had been blood and fluorescent light and twenty-one hours of pain, followed by a nurse placing a furious red-faced baby against Claire’s chest.
No forged paper could touch that.
The thought should have comforted her.
Instead it opened another question.
What exactly had Evelyn done when Claire herself was four days old?
Downstairs, Daniel was on the phone.
He ended the call when Claire entered the kitchen.
“Nathan?”
“Yes.”
“He answered you.”
“Eventually.”
“Where is he?”
“At home.”
“Did he explain?”
“He said he’ll talk if we come over.”
Claire reached for her purse.
“Lucy stays here.”
“With who?”
“Me.”
She stopped.
Daniel set his phone down.
“You can be angry with me tomorrow.”
“I’m already angry with you.”
“Fine.”
His voice remained controlled, but his eyes did not.
“You can hate me tonight if that helps, but you’re not taking a six-year-old into whatever Nathan is about to tell you.”
“You knew he was hiding this.”
“For four hours.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
The immediate admission knocked some of the force out of her.
Daniel swallowed.
“I made the wrong call.”
Claire folded her arms.
“I thought I could get Nathan to explain before you saw whatever he was worried about.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother is dead, your father is dead, and every time your family has a crisis, you decide you’re the only person allowed to carry it.”
“That sounds like something Evelyn told you.”
“It is.”
Claire looked away.
Daniel continued more quietly.
“I should have told you about the church visit last year.”
“Yes.”
“I should have told you about Nathan’s call.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not going to defend either one.”
“Good.”
“But none of that means Lucy isn’t safe with me.”
Claire’s eyes returned to his.
He held her gaze.
The terrible thing was that she believed him.
Trust had not vanished.
It had cracked into separate pieces, and she had no idea which pieces still bore weight.
“I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Take longer if you need it.”
“Don’t call Nathan after I leave.”
Daniel’s mouth tightened.
“Okay.”
“And if Margaret calls—”
“I’ll tell her to call you.”
Claire nodded.
She went upstairs, told Lucy she was running an errand, endured an interrogation about why errands existed after dinner, and left before fear could invent another reason to stay.
Nathan lived twelve minutes away if every light cooperated and twenty if the arterial road near the shopping center was clogged.
Claire made it in fourteen.
She spent the drive refusing to call him.
At one red light she opened his photograph again.
Evelyn looked perhaps twenty-eight in it, which was about right for the year Claire was born.
Her hair was longer, her face thinner, but the expression was unmistakable: mouth compressed against emotion, shoulders squared toward whatever came next.
The woman beside her was blond and narrow-faced.
Marianne.
If Nathan was right.
Claire enlarged the infant until the old photograph broke into colored pixels.
There was no face visible.
Only a white blanket and one tiny fist.
Nathan opened his front door before Claire reached the porch.
He wore sweatpants and a gray T-shirt with a bleach stain near the collar.
At forty-three he had their father’s height and Evelyn’s habit of looking irritated when frightened.
“Where are the kids?”
“Melissa took them to her sister’s.”
“You sent them away?”
“I asked her to.”
“Does she know why?”
“No.”
Claire walked past him.
Nathan’s house smelled faintly of pizza and the cinnamon candle his ex-wife had once mocked him for buying in bulk.
On the dining table sat a cardboard banker’s box.
Claire recognized it.
Evelyn had kept tax returns in boxes exactly like that.
“Where did you get this?”
“Mom’s storage unit.”
“She didn’t have a storage unit.”
“Yes, she did.”
Claire turned.
“Since when?”
“Apparently since 2009.”
“And you knew?”
“Since yesterday.”
Nathan closed the front door.
“I got a notice because the autopay card finally expired.”
“Why did they contact you?”
“My number was listed as secondary.”
“And you went there.”
“This morning.”
“Without calling me.”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“But after you found this, you called Daniel instead.”
Nathan rubbed the back of his neck.
“I panicked.”
“That’s becoming a popular family tradition.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
She pointed at the box.
“You sent me a picture of our mother holding a baby and told me the baby was me.”
“I know.”
“Then you told me not to call a church where somebody apparently forged a record for my daughter.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
He pulled out a chair.
Claire remained standing.
Nathan sat anyway.
For a few seconds he studied his hands.
“There are records in the box.”
“What kind?”
“Medical bills, old letters, copies of checks.”
“So?”
May you like
“Mom kept everything from the year you were born.”
Claire felt an unpleasant pressure behind her ribs.
