Chương 13
“Hey, Dad.”
They hugged awkwardly.
Madison did not.
She said, “Hi.”
Richard nodded.
“Hi.”
Eleanor watched his eyes move toward her.
He looked older.
Not transformed.
Not redeemed.
Older.
“Mom.”
“Richard.”
He lifted the pie.
“I brought pecan.”
“You hate pecan.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
He looked confused.
“It’s Thanksgiving.”
Eleanor laughed.
“That is not an answer.”
For one second his old irritation surfaced.
Then he laughed too.
“No idea.”
It was the most normal exchange they had had in five months.
Dinner went badly in small, realistic ways.
Caroline drank too much wine and asked Richard whether he had apologized to every employee he laid off.
Richard said, “No, Caroline, I mailed each one a fruit basket.”
Caroline called him an asshole.
Tyler told both of them to stop.
Madison left the table for ten minutes.
Daniel, who had been invited because Eleanor refused to classify him as staff after twenty-two years, discussed outboard motors with Connor, who was still dating Madison and apparently had survived Richard’s disapproval by outlasting it.
At one point Eleanor dropped a fork.
Everyone went silent.
She stared at them.
“It is a fork.”
The room exhaled.
Later, Richard found her alone in the kitchen.
She was wrapping leftovers.
“You shouldn’t be doing that,” he said.
She looked at him.
“You have lost the authority to say that sentence.”
He winced.
“Fair.”
He picked up another container.
For a minute they worked without speaking.
He put turkey into a box meant for pie.
Eleanor said, “That is offensive.”
“What?”
“The compartments exist for a reason.”
“It’s all going to the same place.”
“Your entire life philosophy in one sentence.”
He laughed.
Then his face sobered.
“I’m doing the counseling.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Tyler talks.”
“Of course he does.”
“He worries about you.”
Richard pressed a lid onto the container.
“I don’t deserve that.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Deserving is not how families work.”
He leaned against the counter.
“Anna sent me the trust changes.”
“Yes.”
“You removed me as successor trustee.”
“Yes.”
“You kept me as a beneficiary.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Eleanor folded foil around a plate.
“Because I did not want to use inheritance as punishment.”
Richard looked down.
“I expected you to cut me out.”
“I considered it.”
His eyes lifted.
“For how long?”
“Long enough to enjoy it.”
He gave a surprised laugh.
Eleanor smiled.
Then she said, “I also considered leaving you the house just so nobody could accuse me of changing my mind because I was angry.”
“That would’ve been stupid.”
“Yes.”
They both went quiet.
Richard rubbed a thumb over the edge of the counter.
“Are you selling it?”
“Probably.”
His face tightened.
“When?”
“Next year.”
“Why?”
“I don’t use it enough.”
“That’s not why.”
“No.”
He waited.
Eleanor looked at her son.
“I don’t want the house to remain a test everyone keeps failing.”
Richard looked toward the dining room.
“Caroline doesn’t even want it.”
“I know.”
“I do.”
“I know that too.”
“So sell it to me.”
“With what?”
He smiled faintly.
“Good point.”
Eleanor put the wrapped plate in the refrigerator.
“If someday you can buy it at fair value without needing me to distort the trust, manipulate your children, borrow against expectations or frighten an old woman in a lake, you may make an offer like anyone else.”
Richard stared.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“You’d sell it to me?”
“I said you may make an offer.”
He shook his head.
“There she is.”
“Who?”
“My mother.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“I have always been your mother.”
Richard’s smile disappeared.
“I know.”
There were apologies that repaired things.
There were apologies that merely marked where damage had occurred.
Richard’s lived somewhere between.
In March, eight months after the dock incident, Eleanor returned to the lake house alone for the first time.
Daniel had opened the property the week before.
Snow remained in shaded patches near the trees. The boats were still in storage. The dock looked smaller without summer bodies on it.
Eleanor stood at the beginning of the boards.
Her heart beat faster.
She hated that.
Daniel came up behind her carrying two mugs.
“You don’t have to go out there.”
“I know.”
“You can sell a dock without standing on it.”
“I know.”
He handed her coffee.
She took one step.
Then another.
The wood creaked under her shoes.
Halfway down, she stopped.
The water was dark and cold.
Her left hand, fully healed, tightened around the mug.
Daniel stood beside her without speaking.
“I started swimming lessons,” she said.
He turned so fast some coffee spilled.
“You what?”
“Do not make a production.”
“At seventy-five?”
“I was seventy-four when I registered.”
“That changes everything.”
She smiled.
The lessons took place in a warm indoor pool with six other adults, including a retired dentist who hated putting his face underwater and a woman named Sylvia who wore a flowered swim cap and cheated during kickboard exercises.
Eleanor disliked every minute.
She continued going.
Not because she planned to become a swimmer.
Because she had discovered there were certain kinds of helplessness she no longer wished to preserve merely because they were familiar.
Daniel looked at the lake.
“Can you swim?”
“No.”
“You’ve been going three months.”
“I can move six feet with great dignity.”
He laughed.
They stood there until Eleanor’s breathing slowed.
Then she walked to the end of the dock.
The chair was gone.
The handbag had long since returned to her closet.
The old keys had been replaced after the locks changed.
Nothing remained from that afternoon except the boards, the water and memory.
The property went on the market in May.
Richard did not make an offer.
He called Eleanor the day the listing appeared.
“I saw it.”
“Yes.”
“You picked the wrong photos.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
“No sunset shot.”
“You taught me never to trust property listings that require sunsets.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I was selling condos.”
She smiled.
“Goodbye, Richard.”
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
May you like
He paused.
“I’m not asking you to take it down.”
