Chương 7
She drew a breath.
“Your mother called me once.”
“When?”
“Thirteen years ago.”
“Why?”
“She asked if I knew where you were.”
My stomach tightened again.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I didn’t.”
“Was that true?”
“Yes.”
She looked down.
“At first.”
I waited.
“Damian knew you were stationed in Japan.”
I stared at her.
“How?”
“He saw your name in an alumni newsletter from the academy.”
“I didn’t go to the academy.”
Marlene blinked.
“No.”
“I went through NROTC.”
She covered her mouth briefly.
“Then I’ve got that wrong.”
“That matters.”
“I know.”
She shook her head.
“It was some military alumni thing.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t remember.”
For the first time all evening, the uncertainty felt reassuring.
Real memories came damaged.
They did not arrive perfectly formatted for dramatic effect.
“Okay.”
“He saw your name somewhere.”
“And he told you?”
“I saw him reading it.”
“Did my mother know?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Conrad came in.”
I looked toward him.
He was laughing now.
Actually laughing.
A guest had said something amusing and my father responded as if he had not spent the last half hour being confronted with evidence of his own behavior.
“What happened?”
“He took the paper.”
“From Damian?”
“Out of his hand.”
“And Damian let him.”
“Yes.”
Marlene’s voice cracked.
“Yes.”
She looked furious with herself for it.
“I asked him afterward why he didn’t say anything.”
“What did he say?”
“That it would only upset his mother.”
I closed my eyes for a second.
The same language.
The same justification.
Protect her.
Don’t upset her.
She’s fragile.
She’s confused.
Every silence wrapped in concern until it looked almost respectable.
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
I opened my eyes.
Marlene met my stare.
“I wish I could give you a better answer.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was a coward.”
Simple.
No defense.
That made it harder to hate her.
“I had two small children then,” she continued.
“Damian was working for Conrad.”
“Our mortgage was tied to a company loan.”
“He told me if I interfered, Conrad would make Damian choose.”
“Between?”
“Us and him.”
She laughed softly without humor.
“I believed Damian might choose him.”
I looked at my brother.
“Would he have?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a bad sign.”
“Yes.”
She rubbed at a spot on her purse with her thumb.
“Things are different now.”
“Are they?”
“Not enough.”
Her answer came immediately.
I respected that.
“Why tell me tonight?”
“Because I watched Conrad lie about your mother being confused.”
Her mouth hardened.
“She was sick.”
“She was frightened.”
“But she wasn’t confused about you.”
“You spoke to her near the end?”
“Almost every day.”
That caught me.
“You were close?”
“Closer than Damian was.”
Marlene glanced toward him.
“That’s another thing nobody talks about.”
“What?”
“She was angry with him.”
“Damian?”
“For not helping her find you.”
My brother looked up as if he felt us looking at him.
Marlene lowered her voice.
“She stopped believing Conrad about six months before she died.”
“How?”
“She found something.”
The room seemed to contract around the sentence.
“What?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“What did she say?”
“That she had proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That you had tried to come home.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“No.”
Marlene’s face tightened.
“She said Conrad lied about that too.”
“I never tried to come home.”
“That’s what I told her.”
“She insisted.”
“I did not contact them.”
“I believe you.”
“Then what did she find?”
Marlene shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she show you anything?”
“No.”
“Did she tell Damian?”
“I think so.”
I looked across the ballroom again.
Damian was no longer by the head table.
He stood near the service corridor, staring directly at me.
And in his right hand was a small brass key.
I looked at the key, then at Damian.
He lifted it slightly.
Not a wave.
An invitation.
Marlene followed my eyes and went pale.
“Oh.”
“What does it open?”
She did not answer.
“Marlene.”
“I think you should ask him.”
“That usually means I’m not going to like the answer.”
“No.”
She folded her arms tightly across herself.
“You probably won’t.”
Damian turned toward the service corridor.
He did not wait to see whether I followed.
That irritated me enough to make me follow him.
The corridor behind the ballroom was narrow, bright, and aggressively practical.
Stainless steel carts lined one wall.
A dishwasher hissed somewhere behind swinging doors.
Two servers carrying trays flattened themselves politely against the side when Damian and I passed.
One of them recognized me from the toast and smiled.
I wished she hadn’t.
Damian pushed through another door marked HOTEL STAFF ONLY.
“You’re not supposed to be back here,” I said.
“I paid enough for this wedding.”
“That is an extremely Conrad sentence.”
He stopped.
I almost walked into him.
“Can you not do that for five minutes?”
“Do what?”
“Turn everything I say into him.”
I stared at the back of his neck.
Then he faced me.
The anger was there.
So was something else.
Shame, maybe.
Or exhaustion.
“I’m trying,” he said.
“Trying what?”
“To tell you something.”
“Then tell me.”
He looked past my shoulder.
A hotel employee in a black vest wheeled a rack of empty champagne flutes toward us.
Damian stepped aside.
The employee passed.
He waited until the sound of the wheels faded.
“I didn’t bring the key here because I expected you to come.”
“Why did you bring it?”
“Because I always have it.”
“That clears up nothing.”
He exhaled through his nose.
“It opens Mom’s desk.”
I said nothing.
“The old secretary desk in the library,” he continued.
“I remember it.”
“After she died, Dad wanted everything cleared out.”
“He would.”
“She left instructions with her attorney that the desk was mine.”
That surprised me.
“Why you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never asked?”
“I asked her attorney.”
“And?”
May you like
“He said the instructions were specific.”
Damian rubbed the key between his thumb and forefinger.
