Chương 2
Margaret looked around the kitchen.
Two coffee mugs sat beside the bread because she had automatically taken out a second mug that morning.
She had noticed only after pouring her own coffee.
The other one was Paul's old mug, white with a faded green stripe around the rim.
He had been dead four years.
Some habits apparently required longer notice than tenants.
Her car keys lay beside a grocery receipt.
A jar of wooden spoons leaned slightly toward the stove.
One cabinet door never quite aligned with the others because Paul had installed it himself and refused to admit the hinge was crooked.
Nothing about the room looked victorious.
It looked quiet.
Margaret met Daniel's eyes.
"It isn't empty, Daniel."
Her voice softened despite herself.
"It's peaceful."
His resentful half-smile vanished.
For one instant he looked much younger than thirty-five.
Then he turned away.
The officer stepped aside as Daniel returned to the box.
He bent, lifted it against his chest, and carried it toward the truck.
Margaret watched him go.
She had imagined this moment too many times during the past month.
Sometimes Daniel shouted.
Sometimes he apologized.
Once, at three in the morning after the stitches began itching, she had imagined him dropping to his knees in the driveway and begging her forgiveness.
She had hated herself for that version most.
The real Daniel merely put the box into the truck and came back for another.
There was no grand ending.
There was work to do.
Margaret set the deed beside the eviction notice and picked up her coffee.
It had gone cold.
She drank it anyway.
Outside, Daniel and the officer exchanged a few words she could not hear.
Daniel pointed toward the garage.
The officer looked toward the kitchen, then approached the side door rather than the window.
A polite knock followed.
Margaret's stomach tightened before she could stop it.
She crossed the kitchen and opened the door only as far as the security chain allowed.
The officer stood with both hands visible.
"Ma'am, he says there are tools in the garage that belong to him."
"There are."
"He'd like to retrieve them."
Margaret looked past the officer.
Daniel stood near the truck with his arms folded.
"Vanessa isn't here?"
"No, ma'am."
"Is she coming?"
"Not while we're here."
The phrasing bothered her.
Margaret touched the edge of her bandage.
"That's not what I asked."
The officer paused.
"He says she's not coming."
Margaret almost laughed at the distinction.
Instead she closed the door, removed the chain, and opened it again.
"You don't have to be in there with him."
"I know."
She did not know until he said it.
That irritated her.
Margaret walked through the short hallway toward the garage while the officer waited outside.
Fresh brass shone on the kitchen entrance behind her.
The locksmith had replaced three locks that morning and charged forty dollars more than the estimate because one strike plate needed adjustment.
Margaret had argued about the fee for six minutes.
Three nights earlier she had paid an attorney without blinking.
Fear had done strange things to her sense of money.
She opened the interior garage door.
Daniel was waiting beyond the raised main door.
Rows of tools lined the workbench beneath the pegboard.
Some had belonged to Paul.
Some belonged to Daniel.
Margaret had spent yesterday trying to separate them and discovered that grief was easier when objects had names on them.
Daniel entered slowly.
He picked up a cordless drill.
"Dad's."
Margaret nodded.
He set it in his box.
Then he reached for Paul's red-handled socket wrench.
"Mine," Margaret said.
Daniel looked at her.
"You don't use it."
"That doesn't make it yours."
"Dad gave me his tools."
"No, he said you could use them."
Daniel's face hardened again.
"Jesus, Mom."
The officer remained near the garage opening, far enough away to give them the illusion of privacy.
Margaret reached for the wrench.
Daniel's hand closed around it first.
Neither pulled.
For a few seconds they stood with the tool between them like two foolish children.
Then Daniel let go.
"Keep it."
Margaret placed it on the workbench.
"I intend to."
He stared at her bandage again.
This time his gaze stayed there.
"Did it hurt?"
The question was so quiet Margaret almost pretended she had not heard.
"Yes."
Daniel swallowed.
"At the hospital, I mean."
"The stitches?"
He nodded.
Margaret touched the bandage once.
"They numbed it."
"That's not what I asked."
Now it was her turn to look away.
A lawn mower started somewhere beyond the neighboring fence.
Daniel picked up a small toolbox, then stopped with his hand on the handle.
"I didn't think she'd actually throw it."
Margaret looked at him.
He kept his eyes on the toolbox.
There was something in the sentence that had not been there before.
Not an apology.
Not yet.
Something worse.
"You knew she might?" Margaret asked.
Daniel's hand went still.
Daniel did not answer.
Margaret watched the tendons shift in his wrist where his hand rested on the toolbox handle.
Outside the garage, the mower coughed twice and settled into a steady mechanical growl.
The officer glanced toward the street, giving Daniel more privacy than Margaret believed he deserved.
"Daniel."
He lifted the toolbox.
"I said I didn't think she'd do it."
"That isn't the same thing."
He carried the box toward the truck.
Margaret followed as far as the threshold.
The morning air smelled faintly of cut grass and diesel from the moving truck.
Daniel set the toolbox near the ramp and turned around.
His face had closed again.
"She was mad."
"I was standing in my own kitchen."
"You're doing that thing."
Margaret folded her arms.
"What thing?"
"Where you make everything sound simple."
She almost answered immediately.
Then she stopped.
Her son had always accused her of simplifying things whenever the simpler version left him looking bad.
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When he was twenty-two, a missed rent payment had become a complicated employment situation.
At twenty-eight, a suspended driver's license had become a paperwork problem.
