Chương 7
She woke when he pulled the blanket over her.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“Did Mommy know Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Would she be mad?”
Daniel sat on the edge of the mattress.
Emma had been quick to anger and quicker to regret it. She once threw a wooden spoon across the kitchen because Daniel bought the wrong pasta. It hit the refrigerator, and they both stared at it until she said, “I’d like the record to show I was aiming lower.” Then she apologized, drove back to the store, and returned with the wrong pasta herself.
“She would be mad that you were hurt,” he said.
“At Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
“At you?”
He looked at Sophie.
“Probably.”
“Why?”
“Because I should have listened better.”
Sophie frowned. “She can’t be mad. She’s dead.”
“No. But I can know what she would have expected from me.”
“What?”
“To take care of you.”
“You do.”
“Sometimes I make mistakes.”
“You forgot pajama day.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“You said mistakes.”
He adjusted the blanket around her shoulders.
“Yes,” he said. “I forgot pajama day.”
She closed her eyes.
After a while, she whispered, “I don’t want a new school.”
“You’re not going to one.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
This time, Daniel understood the size of the promise.
He remained beside her until her breathing deepened.
Downstairs, Claire waited in the kitchen with two cups of coffee. Margaret had gone home after extracting a promise that Daniel would call if he needed anything.
Claire pushed one cup toward him.
“It’s decaf,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because your life is already caffeinated.”
He took the cup.
For several minutes, neither spoke. The refrigerator hummed. Somewhere outside, a lawn sprinkler clicked against the curb.
Claire removed the photograph from the cookbook and laid both pieces on the counter.
“I know a conservator at the museum,” she said. “Paper specialist.”
“Can she fix it?”
“He can stabilize it. Scan it. Make a restored print.”
“Sophie wants the original.”
“Then the original will have a scar.”
Daniel looked at Emma’s laughing face.
Claire folded her arms.
“How long have you known?” he asked.
“About the school?”
“About any of it.”
She did not answer immediately.
“Claire.”
“I knew Vanessa was struggling with Sophie.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“She said things.”
“To you?”
“To Sophie. Around me. Nothing like today.”
“What things?”
Claire stared into her coffee. “That Sophie was too old to come into your room at night. That the house could not be a shrine. That children sometimes use grief to control adults.”
Daniel’s hand tightened around the cup.
“When?”
“Different times.”
“And you said nothing.”
Claire looked up. “I said plenty.”
“To Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
“To me?”
“I tried.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“You remember dinner in March?”
“You told me Vanessa was impatient.”
“I told you she was treating Sophie’s grief like a behavior problem.”
“You said it after she asked you not to bring Emma’s old clothes over without calling.”
“Because she had put all of Emma’s things in trash bags.”
“They were being donated.”
“Some were. Some weren’t.”
Daniel stared at her.
Claire’s voice sharpened. “You wanted me to be unreasonable. It made everything easier. Grieving sister, territorial aunt, trouble letting go. You had a category for me.”
“You hated Vanessa from the beginning.”
“I did not.”
“You barely spoke to her.”
“Because every time I spoke, she heard Emma.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither was asking me to pretend my sister had never stood in this kitchen.”
Daniel stepped away from the island.
Claire looked down at the photograph.
“I tried to like her,” she said. “I liked some things. She was good with Sophie when she wasn’t competing with a dead person. But the minute Sophie chose a memory over Vanessa, Vanessa acted as though she had lost.”
“You should have told me about the school.”
“I did not know about the school.”
He studied her face.
Claire’s eyes filled, and that made him believe her.
She looked away. “Sophie asked me two weeks ago if boarding schools have locks on the doors.”
Daniel sat down.
“I asked why. She said Vanessa showed her a website with horses and a lake. I assumed it was a summer camp.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did. You were at dinner with the Hales.”
He remembered the missed call. Claire had texted, Call me about Sophie when you can. He had written, Everything okay? Claire replied, Yes, not urgent. He forgot to call.
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“I failed her.”
Claire’s expression softened for half a second, then hardened again.
“Don’t turn this into a performance about your guilt.”
He looked at her.
“I mean it,” she said. “Sophie does not need you collapsing under the weight of how bad you feel. She needs you to pay attention.”
“That’s a brutal distinction.”
“It’s still a distinction.”
He stood and carried his coffee to the sink.
Behind him, Claire said, “I’m sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“I’m sorry I said it like that.”
“That I believe.”
She joined him at the sink and placed her cup beside his.
“Are you going to speak to Vanessa tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should.”
He turned.
Claire shrugged. “Not because you should take her back. Because you need to know what else she did.”
Daniel looked toward the ceiling, as though he could see through it to Sophie’s room.
“She said the application was in her desk.”
“Then find it.”
“It’s her desk.”
“She filled out a school application for your child.”
“I’m still not searching her things without her permission.”
Claire stared at him. “This is why villains thrive around reasonable men.”
“Vanessa is not a villain.”
“No. She’s a woman who hurt a child. That’s complicated enough.”
At ten, Claire left with the photograph sealed between two pieces of clean cardboard. Daniel locked the doors and went through the house turning off lights.
May you like
Vanessa’s presence remained in every room.
Her skin-care bottles stood beside his sink. Her running shoes waited near the back door. A grocery list in her handwriting was attached to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a lobster. Lemons. Detergent. Sophie yogurt—not the sour one.
