Chương 7
“Susan.”
She heard him.
“Frank?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?”
Dad’s face drained of color.
Susan stopped crying.
“No.”
He gripped the back of his chair.
“I don’t.”
And for the first time, the silence in my kitchen had nothing to do with Noah.
Susan was the first to speak.
“I thought you knew.”
Dad pulled his chair out again but did not sit.
“Knew what?”
“That Diane had been telling people to give Marissa space.”
He looked at me.
I could see him trying to search backward through seventeen years of marriage, birthdays, holidays, phone calls, missed visits, all at once.
Susan continued carefully.
“When Lily was born, Diane told us Marissa was overwhelmed.”
“I was overwhelmed,” I said.
“You had a newborn.”
“That’s different from not wanting anyone around.”
“I know.”
Dad finally sat.
His face had gone gray.
“What exactly did she say?”
Susan hesitated.
“She said Marissa felt judged.”
My stomach tightened.
“By who?”
“Everyone.”
“That is very convenient.”
“I know.”
“What else?”
“That she didn’t want people dropping by.”
I looked at Lily.
She was staring at me now.
I remembered those first months after she was born with a kind of physical ache.
I remembered sitting on our old apartment floor in sweatpants while Lily cried against my chest.
I remembered washing bottles at midnight.
I remembered eating crackers for dinner because going to the grocery store felt like an expedition.
What I did not remember was anyone offering to come over.
Not Susan.
Not Caroline.
Not my cousins.
Not even Dad without Mom.
Back then I had assumed everyone was busy.
Or that I had become the kind of person people did not want to interrupt.
Susan said, “I called once.”
I looked back at the phone.
“When?”
“Maybe two weeks after you came home.”
“And?”
“Diane answered.”
My mouth went dry.
“She told me you were sleeping and asked me not to call for a while.”
I looked at Dad.
He was staring at the table.
Susan continued.
“She said you were having a hard time and too proud to say you needed space.”
“I never said that.”
“I know.”
“Did you ever call again?”
“Not for a couple months.”
I closed my eyes.
There were so many injuries in a family that could be dismissed as nothing because nobody knew where to place them.
A missed phone call.
An invitation that never came.
A quiet holiday.
A cousin who stopped asking.
A sister who assumed you wanted distance.
Nothing dramatic enough to confront.
Just enough to change how people moved around one another.
Lily sat down across from me.
“Was Grandma doing this because of me?”
“No.”
Dad answered before I could.
His voice was firm for the first time all morning.
“This is not because of you.”
Lily looked at him.
“Then why?”
Dad rubbed both palms down his face.
“I don’t know.”
Susan said, “I might.”
Everyone went still.
Dad looked toward the phone.
“What do you mean?”
Susan exhaled.
“I don’t know for sure.”
“Then say what you do know.”
Another pause.
“When Marissa was pregnant, Diane and I had a fight.”
Dad frowned.
“About what?”
“About Marissa.”
I leaned forward.
“What about me?”
Susan sounded embarrassed.
“She thought you were pulling away from her.”
I almost laughed.
“I was twenty-five.”
“I know.”
“She said that?”
“She said you didn’t need her anymore.”
Dad muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
Susan kept going.
“She complained that you called her less.”
“I was working full-time and pregnant.”
“I know.”
“She complained you were making decisions without asking her.”
“What decisions?”
“Your apartment.”
I frowned.
“Our apartment?”
“She wanted you closer.”
Dad looked at me.
I remembered that argument now.
Not clearly.
Just pieces.
Mom circling listings in the newspaper even though I had already signed a lease.
Mom insisting that twenty-five minutes was too far.
Mom saying I would understand once the baby came.
I had treated it like ordinary maternal fussing.
Susan said, “She told me you were changing.”
“I was.”
“That isn’t how she meant it.”
No one said anything.
The kitchen clock clicked over to ten twenty-three.
A garbage truck groaned somewhere down the street.
The ridiculous cartoon music stopped in the living room, followed by the soft menu sound of another episode loading.
Dad said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Susan’s voice sharpened slightly.
“Because at the time it sounded like a mother complaining that her daughter was growing up.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean, Frank.”
“Then answer me.”
“I didn’t think it was my marriage to manage.”
That shut him up.
Susan went quiet too.
Then she said, “But there was something else.”
I gripped the edge of the table.
“Of course there was.”
“She told me not to encourage you.”
“To do what?”
“To create distance.”
I frowned.
“How would you encourage that?”
“By agreeing with you if you complained about her.”
Lily’s eyebrows rose.
“That is very specific.”
Susan gave a humorless little laugh.
“It was.”
Dad looked sick.
“What did Diane think Marissa was saying?”
“That she was controlling.”
I stared at the phone.
“Did I say that to you?”
“No.”
“Did I say anything about Mom?”
“Not really.”
“Then why would she think I was going to?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer bothered me more than everything else.
Because for the first time, Mom’s behavior did not look reactive.
It looked anticipatory.
She had been managing conversations that had not even happened yet.
Dad seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“She was afraid of something.”
Susan said nothing.
I looked at him.
“What?”
He rubbed his thumb against the edge of his coffee lid.
“I said she was afraid of something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
Lily leaned back.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Dad looked at her.
“She’s right.”
I ended the call with Susan a few minutes later.
Before hanging up, she asked if I wanted her to come over.
May you like
I said no.
This time I did not wonder whether saying no would hurt her feelings.
