Chương 6
Maren entered carrying Leah’s bouquet.
Alden stood near the window. Griffin sat on the arm of a sofa. Denise occupied a chair with her laptop open. Dr. Patel had left.
“I said private,” Maren said.
Alden looked at Griffin and Denise.
Neither moved.
Maren placed the bouquet on a side table. “Then I’ll go.”
“Wait,” Alden said.
He turned to the others. “Leave us.”
Griffin stood. “That would be unwise.”
“It was my request.”
“You are upset.”
“I am not incapacitated.”
Denise closed her laptop. “I’ll be outside.”
Griffin remained where he was.
Alden’s voice sharpened. “Go.”
For a moment, father and son looked at each other with a hostility Maren had never seen between them. Griffin buttoned his jacket.
“You have no idea what she wants,” he said.
Maren answered before Alden could. “I wanted cake. I had some.”
Griffin looked at her. “You always confuse performance with control.”
“And you confuse access with affection.”
Alden’s head moved slightly between them.
Griffin’s face went pale beneath the ballroom lighting. Then he smiled, but not well. “Congratulations on the title.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you enjoy the announcement?”
“No.”
“Of course not. You prefer deniability.”
Alden frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” Griffin said.
“It sounded like something.”
Griffin looked at Maren. “Ask her why she came in a plain dress and worn shoes. Ask why she sat at a back table. Ask why she let you speak before correcting you. She wanted contrast.”
Maren felt the accusation land because part of it was true. She had chosen the dress because it was simple. She had worn the old heels because they were comfortable and because she disliked waste. She had accepted Table 42 because she did not want attention. None of those decisions had been innocent of history.
She had known Alden might see what he expected to see.
She had not predicted that he would say it aloud.
“I let him speak,” she said, “because he did not leave room for anyone else.”
“You could have introduced yourself properly.”
“To my father?”
“To the room.”
Maren looked at Alden. “Did you need a printed biography before deciding whether to insult me?”
Alden sat in the chair nearest the fire.
The collapse of his posture made him look suddenly seventy. “Leave us, Griffin.”
Griffin’s mouth tightened. “Do not sign anything.”
“No one has asked him to.”
“Not yet.”
Maren picked up Leah’s bouquet and held it toward her brother. “Take these to Denise. They are the only thing I intend to transfer tonight.”
He did not take them.
Alden said his name once.
Griffin left.
The door closed behind him.
Maren returned the bouquet to the table and sat across from her father. Between them, the gas flames repeated the same clean movement without heat enough to reach either chair.
Alden looked at her dress, her hands, the bracelet beneath her sleeve.
“Rear admiral,” he said again.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Three years.”
“And before that?”
“Captain.”
“I know ranks.”
“You said you did not understand the distinction.”
“I understand there are ranks.”
Maren waited.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Where have you been?”
The question was so broad it became almost childlike.
“Many places.”
“Do you live in Virginia?”
“Currently.”
“Married?”
“No.”
“Children?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Maren looked at him.
Alden glanced away. “That was intrusive.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what one asks after twenty-one years.”
“You might begin with why there were twenty-one years.”
“You left.”
“You keep returning to that because it is the only version in which you did nothing.”
He stood abruptly and walked to the bookshelves. His fingers touched a row of identical green spines.
“You defied me in my own home.”
“I accepted an appointment to the Naval Academy.”
“Without consultation.”
“With Mother.”
His hand stopped.
“She was ill,” he said.
“She was still capable of having an opinion.”
“She hid it from me.”
“She was afraid of you.”
Alden turned. “Your mother was not afraid of me.”
Maren said nothing.
His face reddened. “She was not.”
“She asked me to wait until after her treatment to tell you.”
“Because she knew it would upset the household.”
“Because she had watched you punish anyone who disagreed with you.”
“That is your interpretation.”
“It was hers.”
“You cannot speak for a dead woman.”
“No. Which is why I kept her letter.”
Alden stared at her bracelet again. “What letter?”
“The one she gave me the week before she died.”
His breathing changed.
Maren had not intended to mention it. The letter remained in a fireproof box in her apartment, folded along lines weakened by years. She had read it until she could hear Celia’s uneven breath in every sentence. Her mother had written little about Alden and much about ordinary things: a recipe Maren disliked, the name of a tailor, a reminder to wear socks in cold climates. At the end, she had written that fear was a poor inheritance and asked her daughter not to accept it.
“What did she say?” Alden asked.
“That was between us.”
“I was her husband.”
“You were not entitled to everything she thought.”
He sat again.
For the first time, he seemed not angry but bewildered by the existence of rooms he had never entered.
“I loved her,” he said.
“I know.”
The answer surprised him.
Maren continued. “Love did not make you easy to live with.”
“No one is easy.”
“That was one of your favorite defenses.”
Alden leaned back. “You remember every cruel thing I said.”
“No. Only the efficient ones.”
The gas fire clicked softly.
Outside the library, a luggage cart rolled across the lobby. Someone laughed near the elevators. Maren looked at the roses on the side table. One petal had fallen onto the polished wood.
Alden clasped his hands. “I believed you would come back.”
“I know.”
“Then a year passed.”
“Yes.”
“Then another.”
“Yes.”
“You could have returned.”
“So could you.”
May you like
He looked toward the door.
“When did you decide I had failed?” she asked.
