Chương 4
There had been no dramatic confession, no whispered request to keep a secret.
Only fragments.
A door locked twice.
A canceled dinner.
A hand trembling while she poured tea.
Caroline telling her, one afternoon, that Lucinda had a talent for making concern feel like surveillance.
At the time, Elizabeth had thought it was a difficult relationship between a wife and an overbearing mother-in-law.
After the funeral, she had hated herself for continuing to think so.
“Your mother,” she said.
Lucinda laughed once.
It sounded tired now.
“Of course.”
Andrew did not look at her.
“What did Caroline tell you?”
“Not enough.”
“Tell me what she did.”
Elizabeth shifted Alex higher against her side.
“She said Lucinda was going through her things.”
“That is a lie.”
Andrew held up a hand.
Lucinda’s jaw flexed.
Elizabeth continued.
“She said mail had been opened before she got it.”
“What mail?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she tell you?”
“No.”
“Emails?”
“She didn’t say.”
“When was this?”
“Maybe two months before she died.”
Andrew’s stare dropped briefly to the object in his hand.
Elizabeth could see him trying to place those two months inside the life he remembered.
Business trips.
Late meetings.
Caroline telling him she was tired.
His mother becoming more helpful after Alex started having nightmares.
The ordinary pieces rearranged themselves without yet making a picture.
Lucinda watched him do it.
“Andrew, your marriage was under strain.”
His eyes lifted slowly.
She continued.
“I did not cause that.”
Elizabeth felt Alex tighten.
Andrew said nothing.
Lucinda’s voice softened further.
“You were gone constantly.”
“That’s enough.”
“She was lonely.”
“Stop.”
“She resented you.”
Andrew looked at her.
The words had found something tender enough to hurt.
Lucinda saw that too.
“She told me things she did not tell you.”
Andrew’s face became unreadable.
Elizabeth wished Lucinda had continued shouting.
This calmness was worse.
“What things?” he asked.
Lucinda hesitated.
It was the first genuine hesitation Elizabeth had seen from her.
Then she made a small shrug.
“She was considering leaving.”
Andrew stared.
Alex turned his head.
Elizabeth’s arm instinctively tightened around him.
Lucinda noticed.
“Not him.”
She nodded toward the boy.
“You.”
Andrew’s hand closed around the plastic-wrapped memory card.
“You expect me to believe Caroline told you she was leaving me.”
“She needed advice.”
“From you.”
“Yes.”
“You hated each other.”
“We did not hate each other.”
Elizabeth looked at her in disbelief.
Lucinda snapped, “Adults can dislike one another and still speak.”
Andrew rubbed the bridge of his nose.
For several seconds, nobody said anything.
Then Alex whispered into the rabbit’s ear.
“She cried in the car.”
Andrew’s hand fell.
“What?”
Alex looked frightened by the attention.
Elizabeth crouched beside him so that he no longer had to lean backward into her.
“You don’t have to say anything else.”
He looked at her, then at his father.
“Mommy cried.”
Andrew lowered himself onto one knee again.
“In what car?”
Alex touched one finger to the rabbit’s button eye.
“Blue.”
Caroline’s SUV had been dark blue.
Andrew’s face tightened.
“What happened in the car?”
Alex shook his head hard.
“Okay.”
Andrew stopped immediately.
“No more.”
Lucinda folded her arms again.
“Children remember grief in fragments.”
Andrew looked toward her.
“That sounded almost compassionate.”
Her lips parted.
He stood.
For the first time, anger finally entered his voice.
“You cut apart the one thing he carried after his mother died because he wouldn’t speak.”
“I cut a ribbon.”
“He was terrified of you before I entered the room.”
“He has been terrified of everything.”
“No.”
Elizabeth said it quietly.
Both adults turned.
She looked at Andrew.
“Not like that.”
Lucinda’s face hardened.
Andrew asked, “How long?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
“How long has he been afraid of her?”
Alex’s small fingers dug into the rabbit.
Elizabeth could not protect Andrew from the answer without failing the boy.
“Since the funeral.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
Only for a moment.
When he opened them, he looked older.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Elizabeth felt the question like an accusation even though he had not raised his voice.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“The week after you came back from Boston.”
His brow furrowed.
“You told me he was having trouble sleeping.”
“I told you he cried whenever your mother went into his room.”
Andrew stared at her.
“You said he cried when people entered his room.”
“No.”
Elizabeth heard her own resentment and disliked it.
“I said when she entered.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“I know.”
That hurt him more than if she had said he had ignored her.
He looked away.
On the far wall, the old clock above the fireplace changed minutes with a faint mechanical click.
Andrew seemed to listen to it.
Then he pulled his phone from his pocket.
Lucinda’s attention sharpened immediately.
“Who are you calling?”
“No one yet.”
He looked at the plastic wrapping.
“I need to see what’s on this.”
Lucinda’s shoulders eased almost imperceptibly.
Andrew noticed.
“So do you,” he said.
Her expression stiffened.
“That does not make me guilty of anything.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“You’re treating me like a criminal.”
“I’m treating you like someone my son just accused of killing his mother.”
Alex flinched at the word.
Andrew saw it and lowered his voice.
Lucinda looked toward the child.
Something passed across her face again, that same brief disturbance Elizabeth had noticed when Alex took the rabbit.
This time it looked almost like sorrow.
Then Lucinda said, “Your son was there when Caroline fell.”
Andrew stopped breathing for a beat.
Elizabeth’s stomach tightened.
He stared at his mother.
“You told me he was asleep.”
Lucinda’s eyes widened slightly.
Only then did she seem to realize what she had said.
Andrew stared at her long enough that Lucinda’s expression changed twice.
First came calculation.
Then offense.
“You said he was asleep,” Andrew repeated.
Lucinda lifted her chin.
“I said I believed he had been put to bed.”
“No.”
May you like
His voice was flat now.
“You told the police he was asleep.”
