Chương 3
Daniel nodded.
Richard said, “Why?”
Eleanor watched him.
“You told everyone this was your house.”
“It’s going to be.”
“That is not the same sentence.”
“It’s what Dad wanted.”
James had been dead eighteen months, and Richard could still place him in a room whenever he needed backup.
Eleanor said nothing.
Richard’s voice sharpened.
“You know that’s what he wanted.”
The paramedics arrived before she answered.
They came down the dock carrying equipment in dark bags, one woman and one man, both moving with the brisk calm of people accustomed to discovering families at their worst.
The woman knelt beside Eleanor.
“I’m Casey. Tell me your name.”
“Eleanor Whitmore.”
“And what happened, Eleanor?”
Richard opened his mouth.
Eleanor did not look at him.
“I fell into the lake.”
Casey glanced at her wet clothes.
“Were you underwater?”
“Briefly.”
“Did you swallow water?”
“I coughed some up.”
“Any chest pain?”
“No.”
“Trouble breathing?”
“Less than I was having five minutes ago.”
Casey almost smiled.
“Okay. We’re going to check you out.”
Richard moved closer.
“She’s fine. She just got scared.”
Casey looked over her shoulder.
“Sir, give us some room.”
Richard stepped back.
Eleanor had seen him dismissed by police officers once, by a golf professional twice, and by his first wife on more occasions than she could count.
He hated all three.
Being dismissed by a woman young enough to be his daughter appeared to offend him on a spiritual level.
While Casey checked Eleanor’s blood pressure, the male paramedic asked who had pulled her out.
“Daniel and me,” Tyler said.
Richard looked at him.
Tyler swallowed.
The paramedic asked, “How long was she in the water?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Madison checked her phone.
“About... maybe forty seconds after I started recording? She was already in when I started.”
Richard said, “You don’t need the video.”
The paramedic looked at him.
“I didn’t ask for one.”
Richard’s mouth closed.
Eleanor turned her head toward Madison.
“What did you record?”
Madison’s face changed.
“All of it, I think.”
Richard said, “She recorded nothing.”
Madison stared at him.
“Dad.”
“You were pointing the phone everywhere.”
“I was pointing it at you.”
“You were filming the house.”
“I was filming you showing us the dock.”
Richard’s shoulders rose.
“Then you know it was a joke.”
Madison looked at her grandmother.
Eleanor could almost see the moment the girl chose which adult in her family she was going to disappoint.
“It shows him kick your hand,” she said.
The male paramedic looked at Richard.
Daniel looked at him too.
Tyler lowered his eyes.
Eleanor felt no satisfaction.
That was the first thing that frightened her after the water.
She had imagined, through years of arguments and reconciliations and late-night phone calls, that if Richard ever crossed some final unmistakable line, certainty would bring relief.
Instead she felt tired.
Casey touched her shoulder.
“I want you evaluated at the hospital.”
Eleanor started to object.
Daniel said, “She’s going.”
She looked at him.
He lifted one eyebrow.
Eleanor sighed.
“Apparently I’m going.”
They helped her onto a stretcher at the top of the dock.
Richard followed.
“I’ll drive.”
“No,” Eleanor said.
He stopped.
“I’ll meet you there.”
“No.”
“Mom.”
She looked up at him from under the blanket the paramedics had wrapped around her.
“Stay here.”
His face tightened.
“This is my family’s house.”
Eleanor’s voice remained quiet.
“It is my house.”
That time, no one misunderstood her.
She looked toward Daniel.
“My handbag.”
Daniel retrieved it himself.
Richard watched the trust folder disappear beneath the flap.
The lake-house keys remained in Daniel’s other hand.
Eleanor pointed to them.
“Keep those.”
Richard laughed once.
It sounded wrong.
“What, you think I’m going to steal the house?”
Nobody answered.
That silence followed Eleanor all the way up the path.
At the hospital, she learned that being frightened at seventy-four was much less private than being frightened at forty.
People asked about medication. Falls. Dizziness. Vision. Whether she lived alone. Whether she felt safe at home.
That last question came from a nurse with dark red glasses who did not sound as though she was asking casually.
Eleanor was sitting on an examination bed in a hospital gown while her wet blouse and slacks rested in a plastic belongings bag.
“Safe from what?” she asked.
The nurse glanced down at a tablet.
“Anyone.”
Eleanor thought of Richard’s shoe striking her hand.
“Yes,” she said.
Then, after a moment, “Usually.”
The nurse looked up.
Eleanor disliked the correction immediately.
“Mrs. Whitmore, did someone hurt you today?”
“My son kicked my hand off a dock while I was in the water.”
The sentence sounded obscene in a hospital room.
The nurse’s expression barely changed.
“Was that intentional?”
“Yes.”
“Were you afraid you would drown?”
Eleanor looked at her own hands.
The left one was bruising across the knuckles.
“Yes.”
The nurse nodded once and made a note.
Eleanor almost said, He didn’t mean for me to drown.
The old reflex rose fully formed.
She pressed her lips together until it passed.
Madison arrived with Daniel forty minutes later.
Daniel had stopped at the house long enough to bring Eleanor dry clothes. He chose gray sweatpants, a navy cardigan, and a T-shirt from the guest-room dresser that said LAKE PEOPLE ARE BETTER PEOPLE.
Eleanor held up the shirt.
“You did this on purpose.”
Daniel looked at it.
“I grabbed the first one.”
“You are a terrible liar.”
Madison laughed before she could stop herself.
Then she covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Eleanor looked at her.
“For what?”
Madison’s eyes filled.
“For laughing.”
The room went quiet.
Daniel moved toward the window and became suddenly fascinated by the parking lot.
Eleanor folded the T-shirt across her lap.
“Come here.”
Madison did.
May you like
At twenty-four, she had inherited Richard’s height and her mother’s narrow face. Her blonde hair was still tangled from the lake breeze, and her white floral dress had a wet patch at one hem.
She stood beside the bed like a child expecting punishment.
