Chương 3
Vanessa throwing a mug had become a misunderstanding about where Margaret happened to be standing.
"What was complicated about it?" Margaret asked.
Daniel looked past her into the garage.
"She'd had a bad day."
Margaret waited.
"Her manager was on her case."
Margaret kept waiting.
"Then you started in about the money."
"I asked when you were paying back eight hundred dollars."
"You knew we didn't have it."
"I knew you bought concert tickets."
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
"Those were bought months ago."
"With what?"
He dropped his hands.
"Does it matter?"
"It mattered when you asked me to cover your car insurance."
The officer shifted again.
This time Daniel noticed.
He lowered his voice.
"You don't need to do this in front of him."
Margaret almost smiled.
"You brought him."
"No, you requested a civil standby."
"Because the last time Vanessa left this house, she broke the screen door."
Daniel stared at her.
Margaret could feel the old machinery of their arguments starting again.
He minimized.
She documented.
He accused her of keeping score.
She produced dates.
He called her cold.
She became colder.
It had worked for years because neither of them had to speak about what was underneath.
Paul used to step between them with a joke or a task.
He would ask Daniel to help move something heavy.
He would ask Margaret where she had put the flashlight.
He could redirect tension as easily as turning a garden hose away from a flower bed.
After his death, nobody had replaced that function.
Maybe nobody should have.
Daniel stepped closer.
"She didn't know that mug was going to hit you."
Margaret's stomach tightened.
"You already said that."
"Because it's true."
"You said you didn't think she'd actually throw it."
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Margaret heard the sentence again in her head.
I didn't think she'd actually throw it.
A warning hidden inside a defense.
She looked at Daniel more carefully.
The weathered skin around his eyes had changed in the past year.
There were deeper lines now, though he was only thirty-five.
He had lost weight too.
She had attributed both to work.
Now she wondered how much of her son's life she had politely misnamed.
"Has she thrown things before?" Margaret asked.
Daniel's eyes moved toward the officer.
"Mom."
"At you?"
"Stop."
Margaret took one step into the driveway.
The officer looked toward them.
Daniel lowered his voice further.
"This is exactly why I didn't tell you anything."
The answer struck harder than if he had said yes.
Margaret felt something cold spread beneath her ribs.
"What happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"You just said you didn't tell me."
"I mean arguments."
"What kind of arguments?"
Daniel gave a sharp exhale.
"Normal ones."
"Normal people don't throw mugs."
"People throw stuff."
Margaret stared at him.
"No, Daniel."
He looked away.
"Some people do."
For several seconds the only movement came from the partially raised blinds in the kitchen window, trembling faintly in the air from an open vent inside.
Margaret suddenly saw the months differently.
Daniel arriving alone for Thanksgiving dinner and saying Vanessa had a migraine.
A bruise near his shoulder that he claimed came from dropping flooring material.
The broken passenger-side mirror on his truck.
The evening Margaret had heard shouting in the basement and Daniel emerged ten minutes later smiling too brightly.
She had asked whether everything was all right.
He had said Vanessa was watching a stupid television show.
Margaret had accepted that because acceptance was easier than intrusion.
"Did she hit you?" she asked.
Daniel's jaw flexed.
"Don't."
"Did she?"
The officer turned slightly toward them but still did not approach.
Daniel tugged at the hem of his hoodie.
"It wasn't like that."
Margaret felt an old, familiar anger rising, but it had changed direction.
She did not know whether she was angry at Vanessa, Daniel, or herself.
"What was it like?"
"She gets physical sometimes."
Margaret said nothing.
Daniel's eyes hardened defensively.
"Not punching me in the face or whatever you're imagining."
"I wasn't imagining anything."
"She pushes."
Margaret waited.
"She grabs."
He looked toward the street.
"Once she slapped me."
Margaret's breath caught.
Daniel gave a bitter little laugh.
"There, happy?"
The cruelty of it was so childish that it almost made her angry enough to answer.
Instead she looked at the cardboard box by his feet.
One side had been labeled KITCHEN in black marker.
Daniel had terrible handwriting.
Paul used to say every lowercase letter looked like a dead insect.
Margaret hated that she could remember such things at moments like this.
"No," she said.
Daniel kicked lightly at the edge of the box.
"Well, now you know."
"Why didn't you leave?"
His expression changed immediately.
The question had been wrong.
Margaret heard it as soon as she asked it.
Daniel looked at her with open disgust.
"Seriously?"
"I didn't mean it that way."
"Sure sounded that way."
"I meant why didn't you come to me?"
"Because you hate her."
"I don't hate her."
"You've hated her since the first Thanksgiving."
"She called your cousin a parasite."
"He was being a parasite."
Margaret almost laughed despite herself.
It was such a Daniel answer that for half a second the years collapsed.
Then his face tightened again.
"See?"
"That wasn't why."
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"Everything matters to you after it goes wrong."
Margaret absorbed that without moving.
Daniel's voice stayed low, but the words carried more force now.
"You notice every bill, every broken dish, every time somebody's ten minutes late."
He pointed toward the house.
"You keep receipts from the hardware store for six years."
"Seven."
Daniel stared at her.
Margaret closed her eyes briefly.
"Sorry."
A reluctant breath escaped him.
It was almost a laugh.
Almost.
Then he shook his head.
"That's what I'm talking about."
Margaret leaned against the garage frame.
The stitches pulled slightly when she looked up at him.
May you like
"I noticed the wrong things."
Daniel's face changed.
