Chương 2
The physician said the cut should heal cleanly.
He said we had been lucky.
I hated the word immediately.
On the drive home, June fell asleep with her forehead against the passenger window.
At a red light, I looked over and saw a tiny piece of lavender icing still caught behind her ear.
I reached toward it, then stopped because I did not want to wake her.
My phone had accumulated twenty-three notifications.
Nine were from my mother.
Four were from Rachel.
Three were from Blake.
The rest came from relatives who had discovered urgent opinions after remaining silent in the room.
I turned the phone facedown.
Our apartment was cold when we got home.
The furnace had started making a rattling noise two days earlier, an embarrassment I found almost funny considering I repaired HVAC systems for a living.
June woke while I was carrying her upstairs.
“I can walk.”
“I know.”
“You always carry me when something bad happens.”
“That sounds like a complaint.”
“I’m ten.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s double digits.”
I put her down outside our door.
She leaned against me while I found my keys.
Rebecca used to say June could argue herself out of a locked bank vault.
For the first time that day, the memory did not hurt.
It just stood beside us for a second.
Inside, June went straight to the bathroom mirror.
I stayed in the doorway.
She touched the edge of the bandage.
“Will it scar?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Mom had one.”
I nodded.
Rebecca’s scar had been under her chin from falling off a bicycle when she was twelve.
June knew every photograph of her mother better than I did.
“Then it’s okay.”
She said it too quickly.
I crouched beside her.
“You don’t have to make things okay for me.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
I regretted the sharpness immediately.
June stared at the sink.
I sat on the closed toilet lid and waited.
After a while, she said, “Grandpa was mad at you.”
“He was.”
“Because you pushed Uncle Blake?”
“Yes.”
“Were you wrong?”
There was no answer I liked.
“I shouldn’t have pushed him.”
“But he pushed me.”
“That doesn’t make what I did smart.”
She considered this with the solemn irritation children reserve for adults who refuse to provide simple moral arithmetic.
“Are you going to apologize?”
“Not tonight.”
“To Uncle Blake?”
“No.”
That answer seemed to settle something.
She nodded and went to brush her teeth.
At eleven forty-three, after June was asleep, somebody knocked on the apartment door.
Rachel stood outside holding the crushed paper flag from the cake.
“I thought she might want this.”
I took it from her.
One corner was stained purple.
“Thanks.”
Rachel looked past me toward the hallway.
“Can I come in?”
“I’m tired.”
“Your dad called everyone after you left.”
“Of course he did.”
“He says you attacked Blake.”
I laughed once.
It came out uglier than I intended.
Rachel folded her arms.
“I told him what happened.”
“And?”
“And your aunt told me not to make things worse.”
That sounded like my family.
Rachel studied me.
“He means it about the trust.”
“I know.”
“Ethan, it’s not nothing.”
“No.”
The Mercer family trust was the invisible furniture of my childhood.
Nobody discussed the exact numbers around children, but everyone knew where the money came from.
My grandfather had built Mercer Mechanical from two service vans into a regional commercial contractor.
My father expanded it.
Blake inherited the executive office before he had earned the respect of half the technicians working beneath him.
I had left the company at twenty-four after discovering that being the owner’s son somehow meant I was expected to work longer hours for less dignity.
The trust remained the leash my father assumed he could always pull.
Rachel leaned against the doorframe.
“Your share could be millions someday.”
I looked toward June’s bedroom.
“I know.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
The furnace rattled again.
Three metallic knocks came through the vent, followed by silence.
Rachel glanced upward.
I rubbed my face.
“Apparently, fix my furnace.”
She laughed despite herself.
Then her expression collapsed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t stop Blake.”
“You didn’t know he’d do that.”
“I saw him go behind her.”
“So did I.”
That stayed between us.
Not blame.
Something worse.
The knowledge that harm sometimes takes only two seconds while everyone is still deciding whether a person could really be that stupid.
Rachel left after midnight.
I repaired the furnace at one in the morning with a flashlight between my teeth.
At one thirty, I opened the kitchen drawer where I kept unpaid bills, warranty cards, takeout menus, and documents I was too tired to organize.
Rebecca’s handwriting appeared on an old envelope.
I sat down.
The envelope had once contained the appraisal for the small gold watch she had given me on our fifth anniversary.
The watch was gone.
I had sold it six weeks earlier to pay for June’s birthday, groceries, and the materials for a cake I had been too proud to admit I could not afford.
I pressed the envelope flat against the table.
Then my phone lit up.
Blake had sent one final message.
Dad’s serious.
Don’t destroy your future because you can’t take a joke.
I read it twice.
Then I blocked his number.
My mother called the next morning from a number I did not recognize.
I answered because I thought it might be the clinic.
“Ethan.”
I closed my eyes.
June was at the kitchen counter eating cereal carefully so the stitches would not pull when she chewed.
“Mom.”
“Your father hasn’t slept.”
I looked at my daughter.
Neither had I.
“He wants this resolved before Monday.”
“June needed stitches.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“Four.”
A pause.
“I know.”
“Did you call to ask how she is?”
Another pause.
That one answered me.
May you like
My mother lowered her voice.
“Your father says if you come by today and apologize privately, he’ll let this go.”
