Chương 5
Daniel looked toward his mother’s house.
The photographer was quietly loading equipment into his trunk.
Across the street, the golden retriever had returned in the opposite direction, dragging its owner toward a tree.
Normal Saturday afternoon life continued with insulting ease.
Daniel stepped closer.
“There’s something else.”
Claire’s hand tightened around the car door.
“Of course there is.”
“At the lake house, I didn’t find the test result.”
She waited.
“I found the envelope it came in.”
Daniel reached inside his jacket.
Claire stared at the white envelope in his hand.
“It had been opened,” he said.
“And it wasn’t addressed to my father.”
Claire did not take it.
“Who was it addressed to?”
Daniel looked through the car window at Mara before answering.
“You.”
The envelope looked ordinary enough to make Claire hate it.
Her name was written across the front in Frank’s handwriting, the letters leaning forward with the same impatient slant as the note.
CLAIRE MERCER.
Nothing else.
No address.
No stamp.
Daniel held it by one corner as if it were evidence in a crime neither of them had agreed had occurred.
“Where?”
“In his desk at the lake house.”
“You said you searched the filing cabinet.”
“I did.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Daniel glanced toward Mara.
She had stopped pretending not to listen.
“Dad had a locked drawer in the desk.”
Claire stared at him.
“And you had a key?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
“I broke it.”
That was so unlike Daniel that she almost missed the significance of it.
He was the man who returned borrowed extension cords wound more neatly than he received them.
He once spent forty minutes watching a tutorial rather than force open a stuck dishwasher filter.
“You broke your father’s desk.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom said he used to sit there after everybody went to bed.”
Claire looked at the envelope again.
“Did you open this?”
Daniel’s silence answered first.
She laughed once.
Mara shifted in the back seat.
Claire lowered her voice.
“You opened something addressed to me.”
“I thought the report was inside.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“What was?”
Daniel extended the envelope.
Claire did not take it.
“What was inside, Daniel?”
“A letter.”
“From Frank?”
“Yes.”
“To me?”
“Yes.”
“And you read it.”
“Yes.”
There was no defense in his voice now.
That somehow made it worse.
Claire took the envelope.
The paper inside had been folded twice.
Daniel had put it back carefully enough that the creases aligned.
She hated him a little for that too.
“Mom?”
Claire turned.
Mara was watching through the gap between the front seats.
“Are we going?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Is Dad coming?”
Claire looked at Daniel.
“No.”
Mara’s face changed.
Not dramatically.
Her eyebrows pulled together, and she began worrying the edge of her sleeve between two fingers.
“Because Grandma deleted me?”
Daniel opened his mouth.
Claire answered first.
“Because your dad and I need some time to talk about grown-up things.”
“Are you getting divorced?”
The question landed with the casual brutality children sometimes managed because they did not know which words adults had spent years fearing.
“No,” Daniel said immediately.
Claire looked at him.
Mara noticed.
“So maybe?”
“No one is deciding anything today,” Claire said.
“That means maybe.”
“Mara.”
“I know what maybe means.”
A car turned onto the street behind them, and Daniel stepped closer to the curb.
The driver lifted two fingers from the steering wheel in greeting.
Daniel returned the gesture automatically.
Claire found that unbearable.
“Get in the car,” she said.
“Claire, read the letter.”
“Before you decide what you think I did.”
She looked at him over the roof.
“I know what you did.”
“You know some of it.”
“That sentence is not helping you.”
“I know.”
For once, he seemed to mean it.
Claire got into the driver’s seat and shut the door.
Mara waved at Daniel.
He waved back.
Then she leaned forward as far as the seat belt allowed.
“Dad forgot his cake.”
Claire looked at the bakery box still in his hand.
“It isn’t his cake.”
“I know, but he was carrying it.”
Daniel stood on the sidewalk holding his mother’s birthday cake while Claire backed out of the driveway.
It was such a stupid detail that she started crying before she reached the corner.
She wiped her face angrily with the heel of her hand.
Mara stayed quiet for almost a mile.
Then she said, “I don’t care about the picture.”
Claire looked at her in the mirror.
Mara was watching houses pass.
“Okay.”
“I mean, I care a little.”
“That makes sense.”
“I don’t want Grandma to be sad.”
Claire tightened her hands on the wheel.
“You’re not responsible for Grandma’s feelings.”
“I know.”
Mara was quiet again.
“Can I still sleep there next Friday?”
Claire had forgotten about the sleepover.
Evelyn had promised pancakes and a movie Mara was technically too young to watch but had already seen twice.
“We’ll figure that out.”
“That means maybe too.”
“Yes.”
At home, Mara asked for macaroni and cheese.
Claire made it because refusing felt like one more unnecessary injury.
The packet of powdered cheese tore crookedly and dusted the counter orange.
Mara sat at the kitchen island drawing a horse with wings, except one wing was much larger than the other.
“Pegasus has two wings the same size,” Claire said.
“This isn’t Pegasus.”
“Right.”
“It’s Cheryl.”
Claire nodded.
“Obviously.”
Mara looked up.
“You’re being weird.”
“I’m having a weird day.”
“Me too.”
Claire poured the pasta into two bowls.
She was not hungry.
She ate anyway because Mara watched adults for evidence even when she pretended not to.
After dinner, Mara requested a bath and then changed her mind because the drain made a noise she disliked.
She brushed her teeth for approximately eleven seconds.
Claire sent her back.
At eight fourteen, Mara climbed into bed with three stuffed animals and asked whether people could stop being related.
Claire sat beside her.
May you like
“What do you mean?”
“Like if Grandma doesn’t want me in the family.”
