Chương 2
Patricia touched my elbow.
“She wanted to be here.”
I looked at her.
My mother held my gaze for perhaps half a second too long.
“She was on the phone just now, wasn’t she?”
Gerald shifted his weight.
Patricia smiled.
“Yes, discussing wedding nonsense.”
“Of course.”
I followed them into the kitchen.
Three glasses sat on the table.
One held water.
One held bourbon.
The third contained melting ice and a slice of lemon.
My mother picked up the lemon glass and carried it to the sink.
“How was the service?”
She asked it while turning on the faucet.
I watched water run over the glass.
“Small.”
“Well, Nathan preferred things understated.”
“You didn’t know him well enough to know what he preferred.”
The faucet stopped.
Gerald stared at me.
Patricia set the glass upside down on a towel.
“No,” she said quietly.
“I suppose I didn’t.”
That answer hurt worse than an argument would have.
I sat at the table because my knees had started trembling.
My father immediately pulled out the chair opposite me.
“You look exhausted.”
“I am.”
“Have you been sleeping?”
“A little.”
“Eating?”
“When people put food in front of me.”
Patricia opened the refrigerator.
“I made chicken.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need something.”
“I said I’m not hungry.”
She closed the refrigerator more carefully than necessary.
No one spoke.
I had spent most of my life smoothing silences in this house.
I would ask about Dad’s golf league or Chloe’s job or whether the neighbors had finally removed the dead maple tree.
Nathan had noticed the habit during our first Christmas here.
In the car afterward, he had asked why I worked so hard at keeping everyone comfortable.
I had called him judgmental.
He had apologized.
I had been angry with him for two days.
Now I let the silence remain.
Gerald broke first.
“So what happens with the apartment?”
“What apartment?”
“Yours.”
“My home?”
He rubbed his chin.
“Right, sure, your home.”
Patricia sat beside me.
“Your father means you don’t have to make decisions immediately.”
“I haven’t.”
“Good.”
“I’m going back tomorrow.”
Her hand stopped halfway toward mine.
“To Manhattan?”
“Yes.”
“Already?”
“I live there.”
“You lived there with Nathan.”
The correction was gentle.
That made it worse.
“I still live there.”
“Of course you do.”
She covered my hand with hers.
“But you don’t have to prove anything right now.”
“I’m not proving anything.”
“You’ve just buried your husband.”
“I know.”
“You’re vulnerable.”
“I know that too.”
Her fingers tightened.
“Then let us help.”
I looked at her hand on mine and wondered how many times she had used those exact words before getting me to do something I did not want to do.
College had been help.
Moving out of my first apartment had been help.
Inviting Chloe on Nathan’s and my engagement weekend because she was going through a breakup had somehow been help.
“What kind of help?”
Patricia glanced toward Gerald.
It was tiny, that glance.
A flicker.
But once you saw a trap, every thread became visible.
“Practical things,” she said.
“Bills, paperwork, calls.”
“My bills are automated.”
“Estate matters, then.”
“James handles those.”
“James Whitfield?”
There it was.
I lifted my eyes.
“You remember his last name?”
She hesitated.
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“He was Nathan’s attorney.”
“You met him once.”
My father leaned back.
“Fay, your mother’s trying to help.”
“I asked her a question.”
Patricia withdrew her hand.
For the first time since opening the door, irritation reached her face without disguise.
“Must everything be an interrogation?”
“No.”
I stood.
“I’m tired.”
Her irritation vanished.
“You should lie down.”
“I think I will.”
“Your room is ready.”
My room.
At thirty-nine, widowed for three days, I climbed the stairs to the bedroom where my mother had preserved my seventeen-year-old self with astonishing accuracy.
The pale green walls remained.
So did the white bookshelf, the dent in the closet door, and the corkboard above the desk.
Only the photographs were different.
Nathan had been removed from all of them.
I walked closer.
There was a photograph from Chloe’s thirtieth birthday with me beside her, my shoulder visibly angled toward someone who had been cropped out.
Another showed our parents at my wedding.
The original had included Nathan and me.
This version ended at my veil.
I heard my mother behind me.
“I thought seeing him everywhere might be too painful.”
I turned.
She stood in the doorway holding folded towels.
“When did you do this?”
“This morning.”
“You cut Nathan out of my wedding picture this morning?”
Her face tightened.
“I printed copies.”
“You altered them.”
“I was trying to make this easier.”
“For who?”
She put the towels on the dresser.
“You’re upset.”
“Yes.”
“That’s understandable.”
I hated the calmness of her voice.
I hated even more that it worked.
My anger immediately began questioning itself.
Maybe she really had believed she was helping.
Maybe grief had made me suspicious.
Maybe the conversation outside had sounded worse because I had arrived halfway through it.
Then my phone vibrated.
A message from James Whitfield appeared on the screen.
CALL ME BEFORE YOU SIGN ANYTHING.
I stared at those six words until my mother said my name.
“Fay?”
I locked the phone.
“What?”
“You went somewhere.”
“No.”
“You did.”
She stepped closer.
“That’s what worries me.”
I looked at the woman who had spent my childhood teaching me to doubt every feeling she disliked.
Then I looked at the photographs with my dead husband carefully removed from the edges.
“What time is Dr. Voss coming tomorrow?”
My mother went completely still.
I had not planned to ask.
The question simply came out.
For one extraordinary second, neither of us pretended.
Then Patricia picked up the towels again.
“Who told you Raymond was coming?”
“No one.”
Her eyes moved to my coat, then my handbag, then back to my face.
The calculation was quick.
“You must have overheard us.”
I said nothing.
May you like
Her mouth hardened.
“Fay, whatever you think you heard, your father and I are concerned about you.”
