Chương 7
Rachel left with another appointment scheduled and a list folded into her purse.
She sat in her car for ten minutes before driving home.
A landscaping crew worked across the street.
One man used a leaf blower around a hedge that contained almost no visible leaves.
Rachel watched him chase three brown leaves from one side of a driveway to the other.
Her phone buzzed.
Nathan.
How did it go?
She typed:
Fine.
She stared at the word.
Then deleted it.
Helpful. I’ll tell you when I get home.
She sent that instead.
At home, Sophie was asleep on Nathan’s chest.
Nathan lay on the couch with one arm around her and his phone balanced dangerously close to his face.
Rachel took the phone away.
He opened one eye.
“Hey.”
“You were about to drop this on her.”
“I was not.”
“You absolutely were.”
He looked down at Sophie.
“She’s been asleep forty minutes.”
“You look terrified.”
“I had to sneeze twenty minutes ago.”
Rachel laughed.
A real laugh this time.
Nathan smiled.
Then the thing between them returned.
Not Eleanor.
The other thing.
The knowledge of his messages.
Rachel sat in the chair opposite him.
“I have postpartum anxiety.”
He started to sit up.
“Don’t.”
He stayed still.
Rachel continued.
“They want me to start therapy. There are a couple other options we can talk about.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m supposed to sleep.”
Nathan looked down at the baby on his chest.
“I can take nights.”
“You work.”
“So do you.”
“I’m on leave.”
“You are keeping a human alive.”
Rachel sighed.
“Please don’t turn into an inspirational mug.”
He smiled despite himself.
“Sorry.”
She pointed.
“There.”
“Damn.”
Sophie moved.
Both froze.
The baby settled.
Rachel lowered her voice.
“I’m going to get help.”
“Good.”
“Not because your mother was right.”
“I know.”
“I need you to know that.”
“I do.”
Rachel studied him.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because those texts…”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Nathan carefully transferred Sophie into the bassinet beside the couch.
He sat forward.
“I was scared too.”
Rachel waited.
“I was watching you disappear.”
Her throat tightened.
“That’s dramatic.”
“It felt dramatic.”
“You could have told me.”
“I tried.”
“No, you suggested solutions.”
He frowned.
“What’s the difference?”
“You’d say, ‘Let’s hire somebody at night.’ I’d say no. You’d say, ‘Let Mom stay.’ I’d say I didn’t want that. You’d say, ‘You need sleep.’”
“You did.”
“I know. But you never said, ‘I’m scared for you.’”
Nathan looked at his hands.
“I didn’t know how.”
“You knew how to tell Eleanor.”
That hurt him.
Rachel did not take it back.
He nodded once.
“You’re right.”
She hated that too.
“Stop agreeing with everything.”
He looked up.
“What would you prefer?”
“I don’t know. Fight with me.”
“I did something wrong.”
“You also did some things because you love me.”
Nathan’s expression changed.
Rachel wiped under one eye.
“That’s what makes me mad. If you were just an asshole, this would be easier.”
He laughed quietly.
“I can try.”
“Don’t.”
They sat without speaking.
Outside, a delivery truck stopped at the house across the street.
The driver left a package beneath the wrong porch column, checked his phone, picked it up, moved it six feet, then returned to the truck.
Rachel watched.
“I don’t want Eleanor living here again.”
“She won’t.”
“I don’t want her alone with Sophie.”
“Okay.”
“Not temporarily.”
Nathan nodded.
“Okay.”
“I don’t know what contact looks like after this.”
“Neither do I.”
Rachel looked at him.
“And you don’t get to decide it by yourself.”
“I know.”
“Neither do I.”
Nathan paused.
“That’s new.”
“What?”
“You admitting there’s something you don’t get to control.”
She almost snapped at him.
Then she realized he was right.
“Don’t enjoy it.”
“I’m not.”
He definitely was, a little.
That evening Eleanor called seventeen times.
Nathan did not answer.
At nine, she sent an email.
Not a message.
An email.
Three pages long.
Nathan read the first paragraph and closed his laptop.
“What?”
“I can’t.”
Rachel was folding Sophie’s laundry at the dining table.
“Can’t what?”
“She writes emails like congressional testimony.”
“Read it tomorrow.”
Nathan looked at the screen.
“She says she’s concerned we are making decisions while emotional.”
Rachel folded a tiny lavender onesie.
“Your mother violently dumped diapers on the floor.”
“I know.”
“She was wearing emeralds.”
“I’m not sure that’s relevant.”
“It is to me.”
Nathan smiled.
Rachel held up the onesie.
“You know what’s weird?”
“What?”
“I hate this color now.”
“Lavender?”
“Yes.”
“Because of Mom’s dress?”
“I think so.”
“That seems unfair to purple.”
“I didn’t say it was rational.”
Nathan closed the laptop.
They folded laundry.
At eleven thirty, Rachel went upstairs.
Nathan remained downstairs.
She stopped on the landing.
“You coming?”
He looked up.
The question surprised both of them.
“To bed?”
“I didn’t propose marriage.”
“Right.”
He turned off the lights.
They lay on opposite sides of the bed.
Sophie slept in the bassinet.
For a long time, neither spoke.
Then Nathan said into the dark, “My mother did this to my dad.”
Rachel turned.
“What?”
“Not the baby thing.”
“I assumed.”
He stared at the ceiling.
“She’d decide what he meant before he said it.”
Rachel waited.
“When I was a kid, he traveled a lot. If he missed something, she’d tell us he chose work over us. Maybe he did sometimes. I don’t know. But she had a version ready before he got home.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“It didn’t seem important.”
Rachel almost laughed.
Nathan continued.
“When he got sick, she controlled everything. Appointments. Visitors. Food. Even which chair he sat in.”
“You make her sound awful.”
“She wasn’t always.”
Rachel said nothing.
Nathan rubbed his face.
“That’s the problem.”
His voice was softer now.
“She could be incredible when there was a crisis. Dad’s diagnosis, my broken arm when I was fourteen, Mark getting divorced. She becomes useful. Organized. Everybody starts depending on her.”
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“And then?”
“She doesn’t know when the crisis is over.”
