Chương 3
Noah had begun playing with the edge of Alexander’s shirt collar.
“Nothing like today.”
“Tell me.”
“She’s yelled at him.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
Emma looked at him.
There it was: the habit of command. He probably did not hear it anymore.
She did.
“I’m trying to answer you accurately.”
Alexander leaned back.
“Okay.”
The apology was not spoken, but the change in tone was enough.
Emma continued.
“Maybe six or seven times when I was there. More than normal frustration. She’d get very close to the crib sometimes. Tell him to stop. Once she shook the mattress.”
“Shook him?”
“No. The mattress. He was lying in it.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Alexander looked toward the door.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
The question was quiet.
That made it worse.
Emma could have told him the comfortable answer: that Victoria had begged her not to, that Emma had believed it was a bad day, that nothing had happened to Noah.
All of those things were true.
None was the whole truth.
“Because I needed the job.”
Alexander looked back at her.
Emma’s throat tightened.
“I’ve been in houses where the employee tells somebody something the family doesn’t want told. Usually the employee becomes the problem.”
“I would have listened.”
Emma gave him a look.
He stopped.
They had known each other for almost a year.
It was the first time Emma had ever looked at him as if he had said something foolish.
Alexander lowered his gaze.
“Maybe,” he said.
That answer sounded more like him.
Emma sat in the chair opposite the sofa.
“Two months ago I told Mrs. Hale she should talk to someone.”
“About what?”
“She wasn’t sleeping. She said she hated hearing him cry. She told me sometimes she sat in the car in the garage because it was the only place she couldn’t hear him.”
Alexander rubbed his thumb slowly along Noah’s back.
“I knew about the sleeping.”
“Did you know she was taking the guest room?”
“Yes.”
“Every night?”
His hand stopped.
“No.”
Emma nodded.
Outside, somewhere near the west lawn, a grounds crew started a leaf blower.
The absurd buzzing continued through the silence.
Noah sneezed.
Alexander looked down at him and, automatically, smiled.
It lasted less than a second.
Emma saw the smile disappear when he realized she had seen it.
She wondered when he had last allowed himself to be happy about his son without first checking whether happiness would upset his wife.
Daniel came in carrying Alexander’s overnight bag.
“I put this in the study.”
Alexander nodded.
“Where is she?”
“Upstairs.”
“Alone?”
“Mrs. Alvarez is in the laundry room.”
“Tell her not to go near Victoria.”
Daniel looked at Emma.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You have a handprint on your face.”
Emma almost laughed.
The statement was so dry and practical that something inside her loosened.
“I’m aware.”
Daniel crouched beside the coffee table and picked up the cartoon giraffe.
He handed it to Noah.
Noah immediately put one of its ears in his mouth.
Daniel sat in the second chair.
“Dr. Lewis said ten minutes.”
Alexander nodded.
Daniel looked between them.
“Before anyone else arrives, I think we should decide what we’re doing.”
Victoria’s voice came from the doorway.
“What you’re doing?”
None of them had heard her approach.
She had changed clothes.
The blue satin dress was gone. She wore cream trousers and a gray cashmere sweater. Her hair had been tied back. Without the evening dress in the morning light, she looked less like the woman who had shoved a bassinet and more like someone who might be on her way to a dentist appointment.
Emma found that frightening too.
Victoria looked at Daniel.
“This isn’t a board meeting.”
“No.”
“So stop conducting one.”
“I’m not.”
“You always are.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
A different conflict flashed between them, older than Emma understood.
Victoria turned to Alexander.
“I want her out.”
“No.”
“I don’t feel safe with her in the house.”
Emma stared at her.
Victoria did not look away.
Alexander said, “You hit her.”
“She grabbed me.”
“No, I didn’t,” Emma said.
Victoria looked at her.
“Not today.”
Emma’s skin went cold.
Alexander turned.
“What does that mean?”
Victoria shrugged.
“Ask her.”
Emma felt everyone looking at her.
Two months earlier, Victoria had tried to take Noah from Emma’s arms while he was sleeping. Emma had stepped back and put her hand on Victoria’s forearm.
Victoria had said, Don’t ever touch me.
Emma had apologized.
That had been the end of it.
Until now.
“She reached for him while I was holding him,” Emma said. “I touched her arm.”
“Touched?”
“I moved her hand away.”
Victoria smiled faintly.
“There.”
Alexander stared at his wife.
“That’s what you meant by grabbed you?”
“I’m illustrating that she doesn’t respect boundaries.”
Daniel rubbed a hand over his mouth.
Victoria pointed toward him.
“And you can stop making faces.”
“I’m not making faces.”
“You are.”
“That’s just my face.”
Under any other circumstances, Emma might have laughed.
Victoria almost did.
The near-laughter was worse than anger.
For a moment they were four adults in a beautiful room, tired and irritated, having the kind of stupid disagreement that could happen after travel or bad sleep.
Then Noah made a small sound.
Victoria’s eyes went to him.
The room changed again.
Emma watched her.
Victoria saw it.
“So now you’re all going to monitor every time I look at my own baby?”
No one answered.
She crossed her arms.
“I love him.”
Alexander’s expression softened despite everything.
Emma noticed.
So did Victoria.
“I do,” she said again.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Alexander looked down.
Victoria’s voice became less certain.
“You think because I don’t enjoy the same things you do, I don’t love him.”
“What things do I enjoy?”
“Being needed.”
Alexander looked up.
Victoria laughed without humor.
“You love this.”
May you like
She gestured toward Noah.
“He cries, and you walk into a room, and suddenly you matter in a way money can’t buy. Everybody thinks it’s beautiful.”
