Chương 5
Linda looked at her.
“About everything.”
No one spoke.
Linda picked up the loose turquoise rocker.
“Noah told him replacing something isn’t the same as fixing what you damaged.”
Ryan gave a humorless laugh.
“Subtle.”
“He wasn’t subtle near the end.”
“No.”
“He was tired.”
Ryan knew.
He had sat beside Noah during enough treatments to watch politeness become too expensive.
Linda touched the carved words.
“I think that’s when he made Derek promise.”
“Promise what?”
“I don’t know.”
Ryan looked at her sharply.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t.”
“You were his mother.”
“And he was forty years old.”
“Forty-one.”
Linda’s face tightened.
Ryan regretted correcting her.
It was a stupid cruelty, the kind grief made available when people knew the same dead person from different directions.
Linda closed the drawer.
“He stopped telling me things.”
Ryan said nothing.
“Near the end,” she continued, “Noah thought I protected Derek too much.”
“He was right.”
“I know.”
The answer disarmed him.
Linda looked at the floor.
“I know.”
Grace wandered toward a shelf and picked up an old ceramic mug. It said WORLD’S OKAYEST CARPENTER.
“Noah’s?”
Ryan nodded.
Grace smiled.
“That tracks.”
Linda sat on the stool beside the workbench.
“He made Derek promise to look after Emily if anything happened.”
Ryan’s head came up.
“You said you didn’t know.”
“I don’t know the exact promise.”
“But you knew that.”
Linda’s eyes filled.
“He told me Derek had agreed to be part of her life.”
Ryan felt anger return, hot and useful.
“And then Noah named me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I think because he didn’t trust Derek to raise her.”
“Did Derek know that before Noah died?”
Linda hesitated again.
That was enough.
“When?”
“February.”
The same month Grace had seen him leave Noah’s hospital room.
Ryan put both hands flat on the workbench.
“So Noah asked him to protect Emily and then told him he wouldn’t be her guardian.”
“Yes.”
Grace murmured, “Jesus.”
Linda looked at the horse.
“Derek took it badly.”
“How badly?”
“He didn’t speak to Noah for almost two weeks.”
Ryan stared at her.
“Noah was dying.”
“I know.”
“And Derek wasted two weeks.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
Linda stood.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth would be a nice start.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“No, you’re giving it to me in pieces whenever I corner you.”
“Because you don’t ask questions. You arrive already knowing what everyone is.”
Ryan stepped back.
Grace set the mug down.
“Both of you.”
Neither listened.
Linda said, “You think Derek is weak. You always have.”
“I think Derek is thirty-four years old and bullied a seven-year-old on Christmas Eve.”
“Yes. He did.”
“And you’re still building a defense.”
“No. I’m telling you there was a before.”
“There’s always a before.”
“Exactly.”
Ryan laughed without humor.
“That doesn’t excuse the after.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
Grace stepped between the workbench and Linda.
“Enough.”
This time they listened.
Grace looked at Ryan.
“You came for clamps.”
Then at Linda.
“He came for clamps.”
Linda wiped beneath one eye, irritated by the tear.
“The small ones are in the cabinet.”
For the next twenty minutes, nobody discussed Derek.
Ryan removed the bent bracket.
Grace found a screwdriver.
Linda brought a clean rag and then disappeared into the house, returning with coffee none of them had asked for.
Ryan tested the cracked wood.
“It can be repaired.”
Grace looked relieved.
“Good.”
“It’ll show.”
“Maybe that’s okay.”
Ryan glanced at her.
She raised both hands.
“Not symbolism. I’m just saying wood glue isn’t magic.”
He almost smiled.
They worked until the horse could sit level again, though Ryan refused to put weight on the damaged rocker before the glue set.
When he was finished, he stood and stretched his back.
Grace turned the horse over.
Her fingers rested near Derek’s name.
“Something bothered me last night.”
Ryan waited.
“Derek didn’t say Noah lied.”
“What?”
“You told him to explain why he broke his brother’s final promise. He could’ve said the carving meant nothing. Could’ve said Noah was manipulating him. Could’ve said he never promised anything.”
“He left.”
“Exactly.”
Linda had returned to the doorway.
“He promised.”
They both looked at her.
She swallowed.
“I heard him.”
Ryan straightened.
“When?”
“At the hospital.”
“You just said—”
“I know what I said.”
Grace stared at her.
Linda came into the garage.
“Noah had asked me to leave. I didn’t. I stood outside the room.”
Ryan’s anger returned, but slower this time.
“What did you hear?”
Linda folded her arms across herself.
“Noah said, ‘You don’t have to raise her. Ryan will do that.’ Derek said something I couldn’t hear. Then Noah said, ‘I need you to be her uncle. Not when it’s easy. All the time.’”
Ryan looked at the carving.
“And Derek?”
Linda closed her eyes briefly.
“He said, ‘Fine. I promise.’”
“That’s it?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“He said, ‘I’ll protect her. Happy?’”
Grace’s face tightened.
Ryan looked away.
That sounded so much like Derek it hurt.
A promise delivered like an insult.
A dying man accepting it anyway.
Ryan asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Linda sat on the stool.
“Because after Noah died, Derek came apart.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No.”
“He drank too much. Missed work. Stopped answering me. Then you took Emily home and everything became official and he acted like none of it mattered.”
“So you protected him.”
“Yes.”
The honesty silenced Ryan.
Linda rubbed her thumb against a spot on the workbench.
“I thought if I kept everyone from pushing him, he’d come back on his own.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
“And Emily paid for that.”
“Yes.”
Ryan studied her.
May you like
Linda had spent most of her life smoothing surfaces. She cut mold from cheese and served the rest. She removed burnt parts from toast. She renamed arguments “misunderstandings” and betrayals “bad decisions.”
Noah used to say his mother could watch a house burn down and ask whether anybody wanted coffee while they waited for the fire department.
