Chương 3
I was standing in the cereal aisle of a grocery store, staring at a box of dinosaur-shaped oatmeal bites that Leo used to beg for even though he never finished them.
“Sienna, don’t hang up.”
I almost did.
Nathan rarely began conversations with commands unless he was already irritated.
“What do you want?”
“Mom is losing her mind.”
A woman pushing a cart reached around me for cornflakes, gave me an apologetic smile, and kept moving.
I put the dinosaur box back on the shelf.
“That sounds difficult.”
“Come on.”
“What?”
“You know what.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
He lowered his voice.
“She says you blocked her.”
“I did.”
“And Dad.”
“Yes.”
“And Eleanor.”
“Yes.”
There was a small pause.
“Did you block me?”
“Not until now.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
Someone’s toddler started crying near the frozen foods.
The sound traveled through the store with such clean, uncomplicated outrage that my knees weakened.
I gripped the cart handle.
Nathan kept talking.
“Look, I know Friday was bad.”
“Friday was a funeral.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Sienna.”
“Did you know they didn’t come?”
He hesitated too long.
“Mom said you wanted it small.”
I shut my eyes.
There it was.
Not surprise.
Not disbelief.
A careful rearrangement of facts.
“She lied to you.”
“She said there was some confusion.”
“There wasn’t.”
“What exactly happened?”
I looked down at my cart.
Coffee.
Dish soap.
Bread.
Bananas I would probably let rot because Julian had been the one who ate them.
“I asked them to come.”
Nathan said nothing.
“I begged Dad.”
“Sienna—”
“He told me they couldn’t because of Eleanor’s birthday.”
Another pause.
Then, quietly, “He said that?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly like that?”
I felt anger rise so fast that it almost steadied me.
“Why would the wording make it better?”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“No, you’re trying to find a version that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Were you at dinner Friday?”
Nathan exhaled.
“Yes.”
I opened my eyes.
“Then I think we’re done.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew my husband and my children died.”
“I knew about the accident.”
“And you didn’t know there would be a funeral?”
“Mom said they were handling it privately.”
“So you didn’t call me?”
“I sent you a text.”
I searched my memory and found nothing.
Then I remembered the avalanche of messages after the accident, most of them unopened.
Maybe his was among them.
Maybe I had seen his name and turned the phone facedown.
“I didn’t see it.”
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t care.”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“It just means caring didn’t require very much from you.”
A store employee began stocking soup cans three feet away from me.
He tried not to listen.
Nathan went quiet.
When he spoke again, the defensiveness was gone.
“Were there really three caskets?”
The question was so stupid that it hurt worse than anything intelligent could have.
“Yes, Nathan.”
“Jesus.”
“Yes.”
“I should’ve come.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at the bright cartoon dinosaurs grinning from the cereal shelf.
“I have to go.”
“Sienna, wait.”
I ended the call.
Then I abandoned the cart in the aisle and walked out of the store without buying anything.
By the time I reached my car, I was shaking so badly I dropped the keys twice.
I sat behind the steering wheel for nearly twenty minutes while strangers carried groceries past me.
A teenage employee collected carts in the parking lot.
An elderly man argued with his wife about where they had parked.
Life continued with astonishing disrespect.
That evening, Nathan sent one message.
I didn’t know the truth.
I did not answer.
The next morning, Aunt Ruth arrived with coffee and a toolbox.
“You own a toolbox?” I asked.
“I own three.”
“Why?”
“Because men charge eighty dollars to tighten things.”
She marched into the kitchen and opened the cabinet beneath the sink.
“What are you fixing?”
“The hinge you keep ignoring.”
“I’ve ignored that hinge for four years.”
“Exactly.”
Ruth had decided, without asking, to stay in Richmond for a while.
She rented a room at a small extended-stay hotel ten minutes away because she said grief and houseguests were both exhausting and combining them seemed cruel.
Every morning she texted before coming over.
Every evening she left before I could feel responsible for entertaining her.
She never used the phrase taking care of you.
She simply found things that needed doing and did half of them.
The other half she left for me.
On Wednesday, she made me call the insurance company.
On Thursday, she sat beside me while I canceled Leo’s pediatric appointment.
On Friday, she stood in the hallway while I entered Maya’s room for the first time since the accident.
Nothing inside had changed.
Her unmade bed leaned toward the wall because she slept diagonally.
Colored pencils were scattered across her desk.
A half-finished drawing showed a woman with blue hair standing beside what appeared to be a flaming horse.
I stared at it for a long time.
“She was mad at me,” I said.
Ruth remained near the doorway.
“For what?”
“I wouldn’t let her dye her hair.”
Ruth looked at the drawing.
“Blue?”
“Blue.”
“Reasonable boundary.”
“She told me when she was eighteen she was going to dye everything blue, including her eyebrows.”
“That would have shown you.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
The mattress dipped beneath me.
“She went to sleep angry the night before.”
Ruth’s mouth tightened.
“That happens.”
“I made her brush her teeth twice because she lied the first time.”
“That also happens.”
“I was annoyed with her.”
“Sienna.”
“I keep thinking about it.”
Ruth came farther into the room but did not sit beside me.
“You’re looking for the last perfect moment.”
I rubbed my thumb over a wrinkle in Maya’s blanket.
“There wasn’t one.”
“No.”
“That’s horrible.”
“No.”
Ruth’s voice stayed quiet.
“That’s a family.”
May you like
I looked at her.
She leaned against the desk.
