Chương 2
Ten minutes ago, a steward had asked whether Sophie wanted hot chocolate before bed.
Now Claire could hear voices rising behind a closed walnut door.
“Mom,” Sophie said.
Claire kept walking.
“Mom.”
She stopped.
Sophie’s braid had loosened behind one ear.
“What?”
“Did you hit Grandma?”
Claire looked at her daughter.
Daniel was five feet behind them.
She could have said Grandma hit me first.
She could have said you saw what she did.
She could have said adults sometimes reach a point.
Instead she crouched despite the pain in her face.
“Yes.”
Sophie’s eyes filled.
Claire felt shame move through her so quickly it was almost physical.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“But she kicked your chair.”
“Yes.”
“And grabbed you.”
“Yes.”
“So why—”
“Because two things can be wrong.”
Sophie looked toward Daniel.
He had his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
Claire kept her voice low.
“Grandma should never have done what she did. And I should not have hit her.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“What? No.”
Sophie’s mouth trembled.
“You look mad.”
“I am mad.”
“At Dad?”
Claire glanced up.
Daniel looked away.
“Yes,” she said.
Sophie absorbed that.
Children never needed every detail. They needed the truth to stop changing shape around them.
Claire stood.
Elena had appeared at the end of the corridor with a folded cold pack wrapped in a white hand towel.
“For your face.”
“Thank you.”
Elena handed it to her and looked at Daniel.
“The captain wants a written incident note from everyone who was in the room. It can wait until we’re secured.”
Daniel nodded.
Claire pressed the cold pack against her cheek.
“I’m taking Sophie to my cabin.”
“Our cabin,” Daniel said.
Claire looked at him.
He corrected himself.
“The owner’s suite.”
Sophie looked from one parent to the other.
Claire hated him for making that correction in front of her.
She hated herself more for noticing.
“Daniel, go deal with your mother.”
“I’m not leaving you alone after that.”
“You already did.”
His face changed.
It was not dramatic. Daniel rarely gave anyone the satisfaction of a dramatic reaction. His shoulders dropped by perhaps half an inch.
Claire walked away.
Sophie came with her.
The owner’s suite sat on the main deck, forward of the salon, behind a pair of doors Claire had selected eighteen months earlier from a sample book she had kept forgetting to return to the yacht designer. There had been three walnut stains. Daniel preferred the darkest. Claire had chosen the middle one because the darkest showed fingerprints.
She had not thought about that argument in months.
Now it returned with ridiculous clarity.
Daniel standing barefoot in their kitchen in Connecticut, holding three wood samples under the pendant lights, saying, I don’t care, pick whichever one makes my mother least likely to complain.
Claire had laughed.
She had picked the one Margaret disliked.
That should have told her something.
Inside the cabin, Sophie climbed onto the edge of the bed without being asked.
Claire went into the bathroom and studied her face.
A red mark curved along the upper cheek. No blood. No split skin. Her wrist showed pale finger marks that would likely darken by morning.
She turned on the cold water and let it run.
Sophie appeared in the doorway.
“Can I sleep here?”
“Yes.”
“Even if Dad comes?”
Claire shut off the water.
“Yes.”
Sophie disappeared again.
Claire gripped the marble sink.
The yacht moved beneath her feet.
She had owned it for fourteen months.
Margaret had called it Daniel’s from the first day she stepped aboard.
Claire had corrected her once.
Not directly. She had said, “Technically, the holding company is mine.”
Margaret had smiled and replied, “Darling, married people don’t keep score.”
Claire had looked at Daniel.
Daniel had been opening a bottle of champagne.
He had said nothing.
That silence had seemed small then.
A social convenience.
A mother who liked to believe the world arranged itself around her son.
Claire had allowed it because the truth was complicated, because Daniel had been embarrassed, because the family company had just survived a bad year, because she had not wanted Margaret to know how much money Claire had put into keeping the Whitmore name solvent.
Mostly, she had allowed it because peace had once seemed cheaper.
Someone knocked.
Claire did not answer.
The door opened anyway.
Daniel came in.
She looked at him through the bathroom mirror.
“Get out.”
“Sophie’s here.”
“That’s why I’m not yelling.”
He closed the door quietly.
Sophie had turned on the television with the sound muted. An animated sea turtle crossed the screen beneath captions she was not reading.
Daniel stood near the foot of the bed.
“Mom’s in the guest lounge.”
“Good.”
“Thomas put Elena with her.”
“Good.”
“She wants to call the Coast Guard.”
Claire turned.
“For what?”
“She says you assaulted her.”
Claire laughed.
It came out strangely.
“Of course she does.”
“I told her that was a bad idea.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Claire.”
“No, really. Strong work.”
Daniel glanced at Sophie.
Claire lowered her voice.
“You knew this was coming.”
“No.”
“You knew she thought the yacht was yours.”
“I knew she didn’t understand the structure.”
“The structure?”
Sophie raised the television volume one notch.
Claire crossed the room and lowered it again.
Daniel waited.
She turned back.
“You let her believe you owned it.”
“I didn’t tell her I owned it.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is when she spends a year telling people what her son bought.”
Daniel rubbed his mouth.
“Can we not do this in front of Sophie?”
“You started doing it in front of Sophie a long time ago.”
Sophie looked at them.
Claire closed her eyes.
“Sorry.”
The girl looked back at the screen.
Daniel stepped closer.
“I should’ve corrected her.”
“Yes.”
“I know that.”
“No. You know it now.”
He lowered his voice.
“I was trying not to humiliate her.”
May you like
Claire stared at him.
Her wrist began to ache.
