Chương 4
Dad took that without defending himself.
That made me angrier.
“What did she say when you confronted her?”
“She said she was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From people who didn’t understand Noah.”
I stared at him.
Dad’s eyes were red.
“She said if she knew a gathering would be hard on him, she sometimes declined for you.”
“Without asking me.”
“Yes.”
“Without even telling me we were invited.”
“Yes.”
“And you accepted that?”
“No.”
“But you stayed.”
His jaw tightened.
“I stayed married to my wife.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Silence filled the kitchen.
Upstairs, something plastic clattered across Noah’s floor.
Then he said, “Dang it,” loud enough that Lily almost smiled.
Dad looked toward the ceiling.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I thought I could stop it without blowing up the family.”
There it was.
The sentence I had been using my entire adult life in different forms.
Don’t blow up the family.
Keep the peace.
Handle it quietly.
Let her cool down.
Don’t ruin the holiday.
Don’t make Dad choose.
Don’t make everyone uncomfortable.
I looked at him.
“You didn’t keep the family together.”
He flinched.
“You kept the conflict away from Mom.”
Dad lowered his head.
Lily got up and opened the bakery bag.
She removed a croissant, tore off one end, and ate it standing beside the table.
Neither Dad nor I spoke.
She chewed.
“This is weirdly good.”
Dad gave her a helpless look.
Lily shrugged.
“I’m stressed.”
I almost laughed again.
This time a little air actually escaped me.
Then Noah appeared at the kitchen doorway.
He was holding a complicated structure made from magnetic tiles.
One side had collapsed.
He looked at Dad.
Dad stood.
“Morning, buddy.”
Noah didn’t answer.
Dad stayed where he was.
That mattered.
He did not approach him.
He did not reach for a hug.
He did not pretend yesterday had disappeared because the sun came up.
Noah looked at the coffee tray.
“Did you bring Mom coffee?”
“I did.”
“Lily too?”
“She’s not supposed to have coffee.”
Lily lifted her cup.
“Grandpa.”
Dad looked horrified.
“You took the third one?”
“You thought it was for yourself?”
“Yes.”
“That seems selfish at a time like this.”
Noah smiled.
Dad laughed once.
It lasted less than a second, but everyone heard it.
Then Noah looked at him seriously.
“Are you mad at Grandma?”
Dad’s smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
“Are you getting divorced?”
I closed my eyes.
Children had a talent for finding the question adults spent hours walking around.
Dad sat back down.
“I don’t know.”
Noah considered that.
“Mom says you shouldn’t say you know something if you don’t.”
“That’s true.”
“So you don’t know.”
“I don’t.”
Noah nodded.
Then he looked at me.
“Can I have cereal?”
“Yes.”
He set his tile structure on the counter and reached for the cabinet.
Dad watched him take out a bowl, then move the bowl to the other side of the counter because the coffee cups were too close to where he wanted to pour.
It was such an ordinary adjustment that I wondered how many similar things my mother had cataloged as problems.
Noah poured cereal.
He picked up the milk with both hands.
Dad said, “Want help?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
Some milk splashed onto the counter.
Noah froze.
His eyes went immediately to me.
“It’s fine,” I said.
He grabbed a towel.
Dad stood halfway.
Then stopped himself and sat again.
Noah wiped the spill.
When he finished, Dad said, “Nice job.”
Noah shrugged.
“I always clean spills.”
“I know.”
That answer made me look at my father.
He looked ashamed.
After Noah carried his cereal into the living room, I sat down again.
“Who else?”
Dad frowned.
“Who else knew Mom was declining invitations for us?”
“Rachel knows about hers.”
“Susan?”
“She knows now.”
“Eric?”
“No.”
“Caroline?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Dad nodded.
“I can call people.”
“No.”
He looked surprised.
“I’ll do it.”
“Marissa, you don’t need to spend your day interrogating the family.”
“I’m not interrogating anyone.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to ask them one question.”
Lily stopped eating.
“What question?”
I looked at Dad.
“How many times were we invited somewhere and told no without ever knowing?”
Dad rubbed his face.
“That could get ugly.”
“It already is ugly.”
He looked toward the living room.
The documentary from the night before had been replaced by a cartoon with loud, ridiculous music.
Noah was humming along.
Dad lowered his voice.
“Your mother is going to see this as everyone turning against her.”
“That’s because she thinks accountability and abandonment are the same thing.”
He looked at me sharply.
I had never spoken about Mom that way.
Maybe I had never allowed myself to think about her that way.
My phone buzzed on the table.
It was Eric.
Can I come over?
Before I answered, another message came from Caroline.
Please tell me when you’re ready to talk.
Then Susan.
I need to tell you something about Easter.
Lily leaned over my shoulder.
“Wow.”
“Stop reading my messages.”
“You have the font size set for a seventy-year-old.”
Dad said, “She gets that from your mother.”
All three of us went silent.
Dad closed his eyes.
“Sorry.”
Lily put the rest of the croissant in her mouth to hide a laugh.
I looked at the three messages again.
For the first time, the situation felt larger than Mom’s cruelty toward Noah.
Cruelty was the center of it, but around that center sat years of distortions, private complaints carried from one person to another, invitations intercepted, frustrations enlarged, and probably dozens of conversations I had never known existed.
Mom had not simply decided Noah was a problem.
She had built a version of the family in which everyone agreed with her.
And because none of us compared notes, we had helped her build it.
I opened the family group chat.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
May you like
Dad watched me.
“What are you writing?”
