Chương 2
Then Claire noticed the framed photographs on the mantel.
There were seven.
Evelyn changed them constantly, usually after holidays or school pictures.
Mara had been in three of them the last time Claire visited.
Now she was in none.
Claire released her daughter’s hand.
“Mara, come here.”
She walked to the mantel.
Mara followed.
Claire picked up one silver frame containing a photograph from the previous Christmas.
Evelyn sat on the sofa surrounded by grandchildren.
Sophie was on one side.
Jack was on the other.
There was an empty strip of cushion between Evelyn and Jack.
Claire knew that photograph.
Mara had been sitting there.
She had worn red tights and spent half the afternoon complaining that they itched.
Claire turned the frame over.
The backing had been replaced.
“What happened to the original?”
Nobody answered.
Mara came close enough to see.
“I was there.”
Claire looked down.
Mara pointed at the empty space.
“I sat there because Grandma gave me the snow globe.”
Evelyn’s hand returned to her pearls.
Claire set the frame down carefully.
She checked another.
A photograph from the lake house showed six children running off the dock.
The crop ended at Jack’s shoulder.
Mara should have been beside him in her orange life jacket.
Another frame held a picture from Thanksgiving.
Again, Mara was missing.
Not absent.
Removed.
Claire turned toward Evelyn.
“How long?”
Evelyn’s face seemed older than it had twenty minutes earlier.
“Not here.”
“How long have you been cutting her out?”
“I haven’t been cutting anybody out.”
Claire held up the Christmas photograph.
“What would you call this?”
“Claire,” Denise said, “stop.”
Mara was looking from face to face now, and Claire hated herself for letting the confrontation continue in front of her.
She hated them more for making restraint feel like surrender.
She picked up Mara’s shoes from beside the entry bench.
“We’re leaving.”
Relief passed across Evelyn’s face.
That stopped Claire more effectively than an argument would have.
“You want us to leave.”
Evelyn looked stricken.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Mom,” Denise said.
Evelyn shook her head.
“No, she’s right.”
Denise stared at her.
Evelyn’s fingers trembled against the pearls.
“I should have handled this differently.”
Claire waited.
Evelyn looked at Mara, then away.
“There are questions.”
“What questions?”
“Claire, not with her standing here.”
“You keep saying that as if she’s the dangerous person in the room.”
Mara tugged Claire’s sleeve.
“Can we call Dad?”
Claire froze.
Daniel was supposed to be in Baltimore until Sunday night.
He had texted that morning from the hotel, complaining about conference coffee and promising Mara he would bring back the ridiculous blue crab key chain she had requested.
For the first time since Claire entered the house, Evelyn looked genuinely frightened.
Not uncomfortable.
Not guilty.
Frightened.
Denise saw it too.
“Mom.”
Evelyn whispered, “Don’t.”
Claire’s phone was already in her hand.
She opened Daniel’s contact.
Denise stepped toward her.
“Claire, wait.”
Claire backed away.
“Why?”
“Because you need to hear this before you call him.”
The words landed harder than anything else Denise had said.
Claire lowered the phone by an inch.
“What does Daniel have to do with this?”
No one answered.
Mara looked up at her.
Claire pressed the call button.
It rang once.
Twice.
Then a sound came from the front hall.
A phone vibrating.
Close.
Everyone turned.
Claire’s call disconnected.
The front door opened.
Daniel Mercer walked into his mother’s house carrying an overnight bag he was supposed to have with him in Baltimore.
For several seconds he did not seem to understand why the entire family was staring at him.
Then he saw Claire.
He saw Mara beside her.
Finally, he saw the Christmas photograph in Claire’s hand.
The color drained from his face.
Mara ran to him.
“Daddy.”
Daniel dropped the overnight bag and caught her automatically, but his eyes never left Claire’s.
She had seen her husband scared before.
She had seen him in an emergency room after Mara split her chin open on a playground ladder, seen him lose a job, seen him sit beside his father’s hospital bed and pretend not to cry.
This was different.
This was recognition.
Claire felt the room rearrange itself around that fact.
“You’re supposed to be in Baltimore,” she said.
Daniel swallowed.
“I came back early.”
“Why?”
His gaze flicked toward his mother.
Evelyn looked at the floor.
Mara wrapped both arms around Daniel’s neck.
“They wouldn’t let me be in the family picture.”
Daniel shut his eyes.
Only for a moment.
When he opened them, Claire no longer needed anyone to tell her that this had started before today.
She set the photograph on the table between them.
“Tell me why your mother has been removing our daughter from the family.”
Daniel’s arms tightened around Mara before he seemed to notice he was doing it.
“Can we not do this with her here?”
Claire gave a small laugh that had no humor in it.
“That appears to be everybody’s favorite sentence today.”
Mara lifted her head from Daniel’s shoulder.
“Do what?”
Daniel looked at their daughter, and whatever answer he had prepared disappeared.
He set her carefully on the floor.
“Hey, Bug, would you go into the kitchen with Uncle Peter for a minute?”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“I want to know why Grandma deleted me.”
The word deleted made Evelyn flinch.
Mara pointed toward the mantel.
“From Christmas.”
Daniel followed her finger.
His face hardened when he saw the photograph.
He turned on his mother.
“You said you weren’t going to do that.”
Claire felt the last fragile possibility of misunderstanding collapse.
“You knew.”
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“I knew she was upset.”
“You knew.”
“I didn’t know about the pictures.”
“But you knew about what?”
Peter had finally moved away from the fireplace.
He crouched near Mara without touching her.
“Want to help me find the candles anyway?”
Mara looked at him suspiciously.
May you like
“I know where they are.”
“Then you’re already more useful than I am.”
