Chương 2
Rachel stood, bringing Sophie with her.
Sophie wrapped both arms around Rachel’s waist.
Margaret straightened.
“She needed to learn to share.”
Rachel stared at her.
For several seconds, the only sound was the low hum of the refrigerator from the open-plan kitchen.
“You hit my daughter because she wouldn’t give Lily her rabbit?”
Margaret’s eyes narrowed.
“You weren’t here.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You don’t know what happened.”
“I know there’s a handprint forming on her face.”
“It was one slap.”
Sophie flinched.
Rachel felt it.
Margaret noticed too, and for the first time something uncertain passed across her expression.
It vanished almost immediately.
“I lost my temper,” she said.
The admission might have helped if she had stopped there.
Instead she added, “But Sophie has been difficult since Daniel and you decided to force everyone into this arrangement.”
Rachel went still.
The sentence landed somewhere unexpected.
Not because Margaret disapproved of the marriage.
Rachel had known that almost from the beginning.
It was the word force.
“What arrangement?”
Margaret looked toward the window.
Rachel followed the movement and saw the framed photograph on the glass coffee table.
She had seen it before.
Daniel had told her it was from a family weekend at Lake Geneva several years earlier.
Margaret stood in the photograph beside Daniel, both of them younger, while a blond woman Rachel knew as Daniel’s late wife held an infant Lily.
Rachel had never paid much attention to the man at the edge of the frame.
Now she did.
He was half turned away from the camera, but Rachel recognized the navy windbreaker and the peculiar silver watch.
Her father had owned that watch for twenty years.
Rachel released Sophie with one arm and picked up the photograph.
Margaret’s face changed.
It was slight, but Rachel saw it.
“Who is this?”
Margaret looked at the picture and then at Rachel.
“You should be taking care of Sophie.”
“I am.”
Rachel turned the frame.
A date had been written on the backing in blue ink.
Beneath it were four names.
Margaret.
Daniel.
Claire.
Thomas.
Rachel’s father was Thomas.
He had died two years before Rachel met Daniel.
Rachel looked again at the photograph.
Her father had never mentioned Daniel.
He had never mentioned Margaret.
“Why is my father in this picture?”
Sophie was still pressed against her side.
Rachel hated that she was asking the question now.
She hated that part of her mind had already begun pulling at dates and old conversations while her daughter stood frightened beside her.
Margaret reached for the frame.
Rachel moved it away.
“Don’t.”
“Rachel, this is not the time.”
“That seems to be what people say when they’ve had a lot more time than I have.”
Margaret’s lips thinned.
Lily began to cry quietly.
Rachel looked down.
The little girl had finally picked up the rabbit and was staring at the torn seam.
Sophie saw it too.
For a moment Rachel expected another struggle.
Instead Sophie stepped away from her.
She crouched in front of Lily.
“Give him back, please.”
Lily hugged the rabbit.
Sophie swallowed.
“Please.”
Something in her voice worked where the adults had failed.
Lily surrendered it.
Sophie took the rabbit carefully and examined the damaged ear.
Her mouth crumpled.
Rachel watched her daughter smooth the worn fur with two fingers.
Margaret turned toward the kitchen.
“I’m calling Daniel.”
Rachel looked up.
“No.”
Margaret stopped.
“You don’t get to manage this.”
“Rachel—”
“You struck Sophie.”
“I told you what happened.”
“You told me your excuse.”
Margaret’s face reddened.
“I have spent months trying to hold this family together while you walk in here acting as if everything that existed before you is some inconvenience.”
Rachel almost answered.
Then she looked at the photograph again.
Her father’s face was partly obscured by reflected daylight.
Everything that existed before you.
A memory surfaced without permission.
Her father at her apartment years ago, standing at the sink because he never sat down when conversations became uncomfortable.
He had asked whether she still planned to move to Chicago.
She had said yes.
He had said, Good, maybe distance is useful sometimes.
Rachel had assumed he meant distance from him.
Now Margaret was watching the photograph in Rachel’s hand instead of Sophie.
That frightened Rachel more than anger would have.
“What did my father have to do with your family?”
Margaret said nothing.
Rachel’s phone vibrated inside her jacket.
She ignored it.
“Mom,” Sophie whispered.
Rachel looked down immediately.
Sophie held the rabbit against her chest with one hand and touched her cheek with the other.
“I want to go home.”
Rachel took her daughter’s hand.
They had been calling Daniel’s house home for six months.
Sophie had never said it that way before.
Rachel picked up her bag and keys.
Margaret stepped forward.
“You cannot take Sophie and leave because of one mistake.”
Rachel opened the front door.
Lily began crying harder.
Sophie looked back at her.
Rachel did too.
The child was not responsible for any of this.
That fact made leaving more painful, not less.
Margaret said, “Daniel deserves to know what you’re doing.”
Rachel turned with Sophie beside her and the photograph still in her hand.
“Tell Daniel we’re not finished.”
Margaret stared at the photograph.
Rachel saw the fear then.
Not fear of losing an argument.
Fear of what Rachel might discover.
She walked outside with Sophie before anger could make her say something she could not take back.
In the car, Sophie buckled herself in without being asked.
Rachel sat behind the steering wheel and did not start the engine.
Beside her, the framed photograph rested faceup on the passenger seat.
From the back came Sophie’s small voice.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Did Grandma Margaret know Grandpa?”
Rachel looked at her father’s younger face behind the glass.
“I don’t know.”
Sophie was quiet.
Then she asked the question Rachel had been avoiding since the moment she entered the house.
“Are we going back?”
May you like
Rachel closed her eyes.
Her phone vibrated again.
