Chương 5
Some guests expressed concern for Margaret. Some asked whether the video was real. Several had sent prayers. Daniel’s college roommate had written, Call me before you make any decisions. An aunt he had not seen in four years had posted a paragraph about predatory care facilities. Someone else had shared the clip without sound and added a red circle around Elise’s hands.
At the bottom, a guest named Caroline typed and deleted a message three times.
Daniel closed the app.
“Too late,” he said.
Margaret nodded.
The hotel arranged a car. Daniel rode home with his mother in the back seat, while Tessa remained behind to speak with management. Arthur offered to accompany them. Margaret refused. He stood beneath the hotel awning as the car pulled away, his black tuxedo severe against the revolving brass doors.
Daniel watched him shrink through the rear window.
The city continued around them. People waited outside restaurants. A cyclist slapped the hood of a taxi. At a crosswalk, a little girl in a yellow dress jumped from one painted stripe to the next while her father carried a pizza box.
Margaret leaned her head against the seat.
“Are you dizzy?”
“No.”
“Nauseated?”
“No.”
“Do you know what day it is?”
She opened one eye. “I am not answering that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
He looked down at his bare ring finger.
After two blocks, Margaret said, “Wednesday.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“I know. I wanted you to feel terrible.”
Daniel laughed despite himself.
She smiled for less than a second, then looked out the window.
He asked the driver to take them to Margaret’s house instead of his apartment.
The house stood on a narrow street of maples and brick sidewalks, the same place where Daniel had grown up. His mother had refused to sell after his father’s death. She said the plumbing understood her. Elise said that was the sort of sentence people used when they were afraid of change.
Daniel unlocked the front door with the spare key on his ring.
The house smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and old books. Margaret’s slippers waited beneath a bench. A grocery bag sat on the kitchen counter with two cans of soup still inside.
Daniel touched one can.
“How long has this been here?”
“Since yesterday.”
“The chicken is still in the bag.”
“It’s canned.”
“The rotisserie chicken.”
Margaret looked at it and frowned.
A plastic container had leaked through the paper. Daniel lifted it. The meat was warm.
“I forgot.”
She said it plainly.
That frightened him more than denial would have.
He threw the chicken away and washed his hands. The kitchen faucet squeaked at the same point it had when he was fourteen. Margaret went upstairs to change out of the champagne dress.
Daniel opened cabinets.
The cereal was above the plates. Tea bags were in three different drawers. A bottle of blood-pressure medication sat beside the toaster. The label showed the prescription had been filled six weeks earlier. Nearly half the pills remained.
When Margaret returned wearing navy slacks and an old cardigan, she found him counting them.
“Stop that.”
“You’re supposed to take one every morning.”
“I do.”
“There are too many.”
“The pharmacy gives extras.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
She sat at the kitchen table and rubbed her forehead.
Daniel placed the bottle in front of her.
“Did Elise know?”
Margaret did not answer.
“Mom.”
“She noticed.”
“When?”
“A month ago.”
“And she told you to see your doctor?”
“She made an appointment.”
“Did you go?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because she went behind my back.”
Daniel pulled out a chair.
“Maybe she was worried.”
Margaret looked at him sharply. “Are you defending her?”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“She told me you would choose her over me because men always choose the person who shares their bed.”
Daniel went still.
“She said that?”
“Before the recording started.”
“Exactly?”
Margaret stared at the tabletop. “Not exactly. Close enough.”
“That matters.”
“To whom?”
“To me.”
She looked tired suddenly, older than she had in the hotel. “She said you were beginning a new family and could not continue arranging your life around my emergencies. She said you agreed.”
Daniel’s mouth went dry.
Months earlier, after leaving Margaret’s house at two in the morning because she had called about a noise that turned out to be the ice maker, Daniel had sat in his car and told Elise he could not continue like this. He had said his mother made every problem his problem. He had said he wanted one year in which their life belonged to them.
He had forgotten the exact words.
Elise had not.
“I was angry,” he said.
Margaret’s eyes lifted. “Did you agree with her?”
“I agreed that we needed help. I never agreed to force you anywhere.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“I thought I did.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Daniel looked at the medicine bottle.
The wedding group chat kept vibrating in his pocket. He turned off the phone.
“Tonight you’re not staying alone.”
Margaret leaned back. “And we have returned to orders.”
“I’m staying here.”
“That is unnecessary.”
“Probably. I’m still staying.”
“You don’t have clothes.”
“I own sweatpants.”
“At your apartment.”
“Dad left some things here.”
“Your father died nine years ago.”
“His clothes still fit.”
“They did not fit you when he was alive.”
Daniel opened the hall closet. An old gray sweatshirt hung behind a raincoat. He remembered wearing it during college, though he could not remember why it remained there.
Margaret watched him pull it over his open white collar.
“You look ridiculous.”
“Thank you.”
“The tuxedo pants make it worse.”
“I’m going for emotional collapse with a formal option.”
May you like
She almost smiled again.
He heated canned soup. Margaret ate half a bowl and complained that he added too much water. For several minutes they spoke about nothing important. The neighbor’s dog had dug beneath the fence. The mail carrier had begun leaving packages behind the hydrangeas. Daniel’s old bedroom ceiling fan made a clicking sound.
