Chương 4
“Why?”
“You looked wiped out.”
“I’m not driving tonight.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
I held the mug tighter.
“Because they’re mine.”
His face changed in the small, familiar way it did when he thought I was being difficult.
“Fay, nobody’s stealing your car.”
“Then give me the keys.”
He raised both hands.
“Talk to your mother.”
I turned.
Patricia was standing halfway down the stairs.
The tray was gone.
My keys hung from one finger.
“You need rest.”
“Give them to me.”
“No.”
Her expression sharpened.
“No?”
“I’m leaving tonight.”
Gerald muted the television.
Patricia came down two more steps.
“You just said you were staying.”
“I changed my mind.”
“That’s exactly what worries me.”
I stared at her.
There it was again.
Not anger.
Evidence.
She was collecting my behavior and arranging it into a story.
“What worries you?”
“The sudden changes.”
“I came here because my husband died.”
“Yes.”
“I decided I’d rather sleep in my own bed.”
“After saying the opposite ten minutes ago.”
Gerald stood.
“Everybody needs to calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“Fay.”
His warning tone landed automatically, and my shoulders drew back before I could stop them.
Patricia noticed.
Of course she noticed.
She took the final steps to the floor.
“Sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“Then stand.”
She spoke to me the way she used to speak to anxious dogs at the shelter where she volunteered.
“That’s fine.”
“Give me my keys.”
“I don’t think you should drive.”
“Then I’ll call someone.”
“At this hour?”
“It’s seven-thirty.”
“You don’t need to run away.”
The phrase turned something inside me.
“I’m not running away.”
“What would you call this?”
“Going home.”
“This is your home.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Gerald flinched as though I had insulted the house.
Patricia’s face went still.
“That’s cruel.”
“I didn’t mean it cruelly.”
“You rarely do.”
I looked at her hand.
The key ring swung once against her palm.
I considered grabbing it.
The thought was so childish that it embarrassed me.
Then Gerald stepped between us.
“Let’s stop.”
He faced me.
“You’re tired.”
“Stop saying that.”
“You are tired.”
“That doesn’t make me incompetent.”
Neither of them moved.
The television behind my father showed a batter stepping out of the box, adjusting his gloves, waiting.
My own words seemed to remain in the room after I had said them.
Patricia spoke first.
“Who said anything about incompetence?”
I looked at her.
She did not blink.
My father looked at the floor.
There are moments when a family lie becomes visible not because someone confesses, but because everyone chooses the same silence.
I set the untouched tea on the console table.
“Give me the keys.”
Patricia tucked them into the pocket of her cardigan.
“No.”
Gerald looked at her.
“Pat.”
“She is in no condition to drive.”
“She can call a cab.”
“And go where?”
I said, “To the train station.”
My mother laughed once without humor.
“You’re going to drag luggage onto a train tonight because I asked you to sleep?”
“I don’t have luggage.”
That stopped her.
I had come with only my handbag and coat.
I had not intended to stay at all until fear convinced me to.
Now the lack of luggage felt like a small piece of myself returning.
Gerald rubbed both hands over his face.
“For God’s sake, Patricia, give her the keys.”
My mother turned on him.
“And if she drives into a guardrail?”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’ve been driving for twenty-two years.”
“You buried your husband three days ago.”
“Those facts can both be true.”
She looked at Gerald again.
Something passed between them.
It was not agreement.
It was fear.
I saw it and hated that part of me still wanted to make them less afraid.
Then my phone rang.
James.
Patricia’s eyes dropped immediately to the screen.
I declined the call.
“Who was that?”
“Someone from work.”
“At night?”
“People in Manhattan work after dinner.”
“Don’t be sarcastic.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
Gerald groaned.
“Can we please not do this?”
Patricia ignored him.
“Are you talking to Nathan’s lawyer?”
I felt the temperature in my body change.
“No.”
She stared at me.
I stared back.
The lie came surprisingly easily.
My mother nodded once.
“Good.”
That single word told me more than anything she had said on the porch.
I moved toward the kitchen.
“Where are you going?”
“To get water.”
“You have tea.”
“I hate chamomile.”
Gerald gave an exhausted laugh.
For one second, all three of us nearly smiled.
The ridiculous normality of it hurt.
In the kitchen, I opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water.
My father followed a minute later.
He stood by the counter without looking at me.
“Don’t fight with your mother tonight.”
“I’m trying to leave.”
“I know.”
“Then help me.”
He scratched at a spot near his wrist.
His wedding ring had left a pale groove there where the skin was compressed.
“She means well.”
“No, she means specifically.”
He glanced at me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she has a plan.”
“Your mother always has a plan.”
“This one involves Dr. Voss.”
His face drained.
Not much.
Enough.
“Did she tell you?”
I asked.
He opened a cabinet and took down a glass he did not need.
“Tell me what?”
“That he’s coming tomorrow.”
“He checks on all of us.”
“He hasn’t checked on me in seventeen years.”
“He’s a friend.”
“You pay your friends sixty thousand dollars?”
The glass slipped from his fingers.
It struck the counter, bounced once, and hit the tile floor.
It did not shatter.
The sound still brought Patricia running.
“What happened?”
Gerald stared at me.
I stared back.
My mother looked from his face to mine.
“What did you say?”
I bent and picked up the glass.
My hand was shaking now.
“I asked Dad a question.”
“What question?”
May you like
Gerald finally moved.
He took the glass from me and set it in the sink.
