Chương 5
“Then what is it?”
“I’m taking my children home.”
She laughed once.
“Of course.”
I turned away.
Behind me, Dad said, “Carol, stop.”
I kept walking.
Halfway across the yard, I heard footsteps behind me.
Claire caught up near the driveway.
“Marissa.”
I stopped.
She looked past me toward the car.
Lily had seen us coming and was standing straighter now.
Noah remained on the back seat.
Claire lowered her voice.
“I’m sorry.”
I nodded.
She looked frustrated.
“That was pathetic.”
“What?”
“What I said at Thanksgiving.”
I didn’t answer.
She rubbed both palms against the sides of her shorts.
“I was tired, and Mom had been complaining all night about the food, and I said Christmas had been easier the year you stayed home.”
“Why had I stayed home?”
“You all had the flu.”
I remembered.
Four days of crackers, cartoons, and a feverish seven-year-old Lily sleeping sideways across my bed.
Claire gave a humorless smile.
“So apparently your absence made Christmas magical.”
Despite everything, a small laugh escaped me.
It hurt.
Claire’s eyes filled.
“I wasn’t talking about Noah.”
“Maybe not.”
“But I let her turn it into that.”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
The agreement seemed to sting more than anger would have.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at my sister for a long moment.
Then I said, “You should apologize to him someday.”
“Not today.”
Her face tightened.
“I know.”
I walked to the car.
Lily opened the passenger door for me without speaking.
Noah looked up from the back seat.
“Are we going home?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
Then he asked, “Is Grandpa mad at me too?”
I turned around before starting the engine.
“No.”
“Is Grandma?”
I gripped the steering wheel.
There was no answer that would make an eight-year-old safer without lying to him.
“Grandma is angry about things that are not your responsibility.”
He considered that.
“Does she still like me?”
Lily looked out her window.
I could see her jaw working.
I said, “I think Grandma has some things she needs to figure out.”
Noah picked at a loose thread near the hem of his dinosaur shirt.
“That means you don’t know.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
“No.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
I started the car.
As we pulled away from my parents’ house, Lily reached back between the seats without looking.
A moment later, Noah’s hand slipped into hers.
For the first ten minutes of the drive, nobody spoke.
The air conditioner pushed warm air for a few seconds before finally cooling, and Lily kept her hand stretched awkwardly behind her until Noah let go on his own.
He leaned against the window and watched neighborhoods pass.
I drove too carefully.
Every stop sign became a full three-second pause.
Every yellow light made me brake.
It was the kind of driving I did when my mind was somewhere else and I was afraid my body might betray me.
At the third red light, Lily looked over.
“Mom.”
“I’m okay.”
“I didn’t ask.”
I glanced at her.
She was looking straight ahead.
“That was kind of the point.”
A laugh almost came out, but it died before reaching my mouth.
“You planned the recording.”
She nodded.
“How long?”
“Since Tuesday.”
I kept my eyes on the road.
“What happened Tuesday?”
She was quiet long enough that I checked the rearview mirror.
Noah appeared to be watching a garbage truck in the opposite lane.
Lily lowered her voice.
“Grandma texted me.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked if I could come over sometime before Grandpa’s birthday because she wanted help with something.”
“And you went Wednesday?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She picked at a tiny crack in the edge of her phone case.
“Because I thought she was going to ask me to help with decorations.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“I know.”
Her mouth tightened.
“And then she started talking about you.”
I felt my shoulders stiffen.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing crazy at first.”
“Meaning?”
“That you were stressed.”
I waited.
“That you’d been stressed for years.”
Another red light.
I stopped.
Lily said, “She said you make decisions emotionally.”
I looked at her.
She shrugged once.
“I didn’t agree with her.”
“I know.”
“She said you don’t see how much everyone has to adjust.”
“Because of Noah.”
“At first she didn’t say his name.”
That sounded exactly like my mother.
She had always preferred implication to accusation when she thought implication might do the work for her.
Lily continued.
“She talked about Christmas and restaurants and family trips.”
“What family trips?”
“The lake.”
I almost laughed.
“We haven’t gone to the lake in three years.”
“I said that.”
“And?”
“She said that was the problem.”
The light changed.
I drove.
“What did she want from you?”
Lily turned her phone facedown in her lap.
“She wanted me to talk to you.”
I already knew, but hearing it stated plainly hurt differently.
“About leaving Noah home today.”
“Yes.”
Noah shifted in the back seat.
Lily stopped talking.
We passed a pharmacy, a gas station, a church with a sign announcing a fall clothing drive three months too early.
Noah said, “Can we get fries?”
The question was so ordinary that I nearly cried.
“Yes.”
“From the place with the curly ones?”
“Yes.”
Lily turned toward him.
“You hate their curly fries.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You said they taste like pencil shavings.”
“They do, but good pencil shavings.”
Lily snorted.
I smiled despite myself.
We went through the drive-through and ordered enough food for people who had already eaten lunch.
Noah asked for a chocolate shake.
Lily ordered nothing and then ate half his fries before we reached home.
By the time we pulled into our driveway, the family group chat had forty-seven unread messages.
I did not open it.
Daniel’s truck was not in the driveway.
May you like
He was working a Saturday shift at the warehouse because one of his supervisors had called out sick.
I had texted him only three words from the picnic.
