Chương 10
“Oh.”
I hated how much disappointment could fit inside one syllable.
Zoe appeared behind him wearing only one pink flip-flop.
“I can’t find my other shoe.”
My mother immediately stood.
“I’ll help you.”
“It’s under the couch,” one of the twins said.
Zoe looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“I kicked it there.”
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
He got down on his hands and knees and reached beneath the sofa.
When he pulled the flip-flop out, it had a streak of orange soda across the strap.
“Sorry.”
Zoe inspected it.
“It’s sticky.”
“I know.”
“Can you wash it?”
The boy looked at Jenna.
She nodded toward the sink.
He carried the flip-flop to the kitchen without complaint.
I watched him rinse it under the faucet.
Small corrections.
That was how most damage got repaired, when it got repaired at all.
Not speeches.
Not revelations.
Someone simply bent down and cleaned what they had made dirty.
Caroline closed her folder.
“I’m going to give you all some space.”
“Thank you.”
She handed me her card even though her number was already in my phone.
“Call tonight if you want.”
She left through the front door.
My father waited until her SUV backed out before speaking.
“You should take it.”
“Dad.”
“I’m just saying.”
“You’ve been saying for three days that this place belongs to the family.”
“I was wrong about that.”
The speed of the admission irritated me.
“That was easy.”
His face tightened.
“What do you want from me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
He stepped toward the island.
“You want me to suffer enough before you believe I’m sorry.”
My mother whispered his name.
He shook his head.
“No, let him hear it.”
I stared at him.
“That’s not what I want.”
“Then what?”
“I want you to understand why it happened.”
“I understand.”
“No.”
I kept my voice low.
“You understand that Jenna lied.”
His eyes hardened.
“That’s a big part of it.”
“It is.”
“But it’s not all of it.”
He crossed his arms.
“Here we go.”
There it was again.
The old resistance.
The instant assumption that if I continued talking, I was making a case instead of trying to be heard.
I felt my patience go.
“You know what?”
I picked up Eli’s box.
“We’re done for today.”
My mother stepped forward.
“Daryl.”
“No.”
I looked toward the luggage.
“Everyone packs.”
Jenna nodded once.
My father looked away.
Mark went back to the guest room without speaking.
For the next forty minutes, the cottage filled with the unglamorous sounds of departure.
Zippers.
Closet doors.
The scrape of suitcase wheels.
A twin complaining that his charger belonged in the front pocket, not the side one.
My mother emptied food from the refrigerator into reusable grocery bags.
She held up a container of hummus.
“Is this yours?”
“No.”
“Jenna?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you not know if hummus is yours?”
“Mom, please.”
My mother put it in her own bag.
Apparently uncertainty transferred ownership.
I took sheets off the guest bed.
Mark came in and helped without being asked.
For several minutes we worked in silence.
He balled one fitted sheet badly and threw it into the laundry basket.
“That’s not how you fold that,” I said.
He looked at me.
“You know how to fold a fitted sheet?”
“No.”
“Then shut up.”
I laughed.
So did he.
It was the first normal thing between us all day.
Then his face fell again.
“I’m sorry about the hot tub.”
I pulled a pillowcase off.
“The hot tub is pretty low on the list.”
“Still.”
“Forget it.”
He nodded.
“I should’ve asked you directly.”
“Yes.”
“I thought it would make me look cheap.”
I stopped.
“What?”
He sat on the edge of the stripped mattress.
“When Jenna said your family was basically giving us access for the summer, I asked if we should pay something.”
He rubbed his palms together.
“She said you’d be insulted.”
I sat in the chair by the window.
“I would not have been insulted.”
“Yeah.”
He looked toward the hallway.
“I get that now.”
“Why didn’t you text me?”
“Because you make me nervous.”
That caught me off guard.
“Why?”
He laughed softly.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“You’re the doctor brother.”
“So?”
“So you have the career.”
He gestured vaguely.
“You have the money, the calm voice, the place in Malibu.”
“I’m divorced.”
“That doesn’t exactly make you less intimidating.”
I stared at him.
He shrugged.
“You always look like you know what the next three moves are.”
I looked down at the pillowcase in my hands.
“Mostly I’m trying to remember whether I moved laundry to the dryer.”
He smiled.
“That helps.”
“I’m glad my incompetence is healing.”
“It is.”
His smile faded.
“I really didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
He looked at me.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
That seemed to matter more than I expected.
He nodded and stood.
“Thanks.”
When he left, I stayed in the room for a moment.
The walls had little dents from where Eli and Zoe had hung paper stars with removable hooks that turned out not to be very removable.
I had been annoyed when I first saw them.
Now I ran my thumb over one of the marks.
Selling the cottage had been easy when I imagined it empty.
It was harder with evidence of my children everywhere.
A sock behind the dresser.
A glow-in-the-dark star near the ceiling.
Three faint pencil lines inside the closet where Zoe had decided to measure her stuffed animals.
I picked up the sock and put it in my pocket.
When I returned to the kitchen, Jenna was alone.
Everyone else was carrying bags outside.
She stood with both hands on the counter.
“Do you have a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“For the house?”
“For life.”
She almost smiled.
“Of course you do.”
“What do you need?”
She looked toward the driveway.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not like you.”
May you like
“No.”
She rubbed at a water ring on the counter.
