Chương 3
Nathan followed.
Grace stepped outside without looking back.
Behind them, Victoria remained alone on the white marble floor, and for the first time that afternoon, Grace was more afraid of what Victoria knew than of what she had already done.
Nathan caught up with Grace at the bottom of the front steps, but he did not touch her.
His black sedan sat beneath the circular portico, polished enough to throw back a warped reflection of the columns.
“I’ll drive,” he said.
Grace kept moving toward the passenger side.
“I assumed you would.”
Lily had gone quiet in the way frightened children sometimes did when they had cried past the point of sound.
Her cheek rested against Grace’s collarbone, and one small hand stayed fisted in the brown fabric at Grace’s shoulder.
The hand was dangerously close to the place Victoria had struck.
Grace shifted Lily slightly and nearly dropped her bag.
Nathan reached for it.
This time Grace let him take it.
He noticed.
Neither of them mentioned it.
He opened the rear passenger door.
Grace stopped.
“I need to sit with her.”
“Of course.”
Nathan stepped back.
Grace eased herself into the rear seat with Lily still wrapped around her.
The movement was awkward, and her injured shoulder protested so sharply that her vision blurred for a second.
Nathan crouched outside the open door.
“Grace.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“I know.”
That silenced him.
He placed her bag on the floorboard near her feet.
Lily looked at him from the shelter of Grace’s chest.
Nathan softened his voice.
“Hey.”
Lily did not answer.
He seemed uncertain what to do with his hands.
Grace had never seen him uncertain around a child because, as far as she knew, he had never spent enough time around one to become bad at it.
Adults who rarely spoke to children often tried too hard.
Nathan did the opposite.
He stayed where he was.
“My name is Nathan.”
Lily’s fingers tightened.
“I know.”
His face changed.
Grace closed her eyes briefly.
Nathan looked at her.
“What does she know?”
“Not now.”
“Grace.”
“She’s scared.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Then act like it.”
The words came out sharper than she intended.
Nathan’s jaw tightened, but he nodded.
“Okay.”
He closed the door gently.
Grace watched him walk around the car.
He stopped near the driver’s side and looked back at the mansion.
Victoria stood behind the glass doors.
From this distance, she looked composed again.
One hand rested against the black frame.
The hockey stick remained on the stone outside, exactly where Nathan had left it.
For an instant, Grace wondered whether Victoria was looking at Nathan or at the stick.
Then Nathan got into the car.
He started the engine and lowered the air conditioning.
“Urgent care on Westbrook?”
Grace glanced up.
“The one by the pharmacy?”
“Yes.”
“That’s fine.”
Nathan pulled away from the house.
Grace watched the mansion disappear behind clipped hedges and a row of ornamental pear trees.
Only when they reached the street did her breathing loosen.
Lily felt it.
“You hurt?”
“A little.”
“Bad?”
Grace kissed the top of her head.
“Not too bad.”
Lily frowned.
“You made the face.”
Nathan looked into the rearview mirror.
“What face?”
Lily looked at him and then hid again.
Grace almost smiled despite herself.
“She means the face I make when something hurts.”
“What does it look like?”
“You’re driving.”
“I can drive and ask a question.”
“You were never particularly good at doing two things at once.”
A small silence followed.
Then Nathan gave a short, disbelieving breath that was nearly a laugh.
It disappeared quickly.
Grace looked out the window.
The familiar rhythm of old conversation had frightened her more than anger would have.
They stopped at a red light.
Nathan rested both hands on the steering wheel.
“When did she start calling me Daddy?”
Grace felt her stomach tighten.
“She doesn’t call you that.”
“She just did.”
“I know.”
“So why?”
Grace looked down at Lily.
The child’s eyes were closed now, though her breathing showed she was awake.
“I showed her a picture.”
Nathan turned his head slightly.
“What picture?”
“The one from Lake George.”
He stared forward again.
Grace remembered the photograph because she had tried three times to throw it away.
Nathan had been standing beside a dock in rolled-up shirtsleeves, squinting into late-afternoon sun while Grace laughed at something outside the frame.
They had been twenty-nine and stupid enough to believe that serious conversations could always be postponed.
“You kept that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked.”
“How could she ask about someone she didn’t know existed?”
Grace looked at him.
Nathan pressed his lips together.
“Right.”
The light changed.
He drove on.
Lily stirred against Grace.
“Grandma has cookies.”
Grace stroked her hair.
“She probably does.”
“The circle ones.”
“She always has the circle ones.”
Nathan looked into the mirror again.
“What kind?”
Grace met his eyes there.
“Shortbread.”
He nodded, as though that mattered.
A minute later he said, “Does she like chocolate?”
Grace knew what he was doing.
He was trying to collect facts because facts were safer than the one fact large enough to dismantle his life.
“Sometimes.”
“Vanilla?”
“She’ll eat vanilla if there are sprinkles.”
“Strawberry?”
“She says it tastes pink.”
Nathan’s mouth moved.
“What does that mean?”
“No one knows.”
Lily opened one eye.
“It means pink.”
Nathan looked into the mirror.
For the first time, Lily did not hide.
“Understood,” he said.
Her eye closed again.
Grace turned toward the window because the tenderness of the moment felt unbearable.
The urgent care center occupied the end unit of a low brick shopping plaza between a dry cleaner and a pet supply store.
Nathan parked near the entrance.
Before he could get out, Grace said, “You can wait here.”
He looked at her.
“No.”
“Nathan.”
“I watched someone hit you with a hockey stick.”
“I remember.”
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“You think I’m sitting in a parking lot?”
“I think Lily needs less chaos.”
