Chương 2
E & L.
I ate one.
It was excellent.
That annoyed me too.
At eleven seventeen, Daniel knocked on my front door.
He did not use his key.
That told me he knew better.
I opened the door but did not invite him farther than the foyer.
“Your face is red.”
“I’m aware.”
“Did you put ice on it?”
“No.”
“Mom.”
“Daniel, if you came here to supervise swelling, I have frozen peas.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make a joke when you’re furious.”
“I’m not joking about the peas.”
His mouth twitched despite himself, then flattened.
“Lauren is a mess.”
I waited.
“She knows what she did was wrong.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She’s been crying for two hours.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He looked toward the living room.
My late husband Frank’s photograph sat on the mantel, taken three summers before cancer made him thin.
Daniel stared at it longer than necessary.
“Ethan wants you at the wedding.”
“Ethan has my number.”
“He’s scared to call you.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“Mom, come on.”
“No.”
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“You don’t know everything that’s been going on.”
I felt something inside me sharpen.
“Then tell me.”
He lowered his hands.
“Lauren has been under enormous pressure.”
I almost laughed.
Instead I opened the front door wider.
“If your next sentence explains why pressure makes hitting a sixty-eight-year-old woman understandable, you should leave before you say it.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then choose better words.”
He looked exhausted suddenly.
Not angry.
Not defensive.
Exhausted.
“There are problems between them.”
“What kind of problems?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
“Then why are you here defending what you don’t know?”
“I’m trying to keep my son’s wedding from falling apart.”
There it was.
Not justice.
Not truth.
Logistics.
Tomorrow’s flowers.
Tomorrow’s photographer.
Tomorrow’s hundred and forty guests.
Tomorrow’s expensive machinery already moving forward.
“Is Ethan safe with her?”
Daniel stared at me.
It was the first question all evening that seemed to frighten him.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because he watched her hit me and looked afraid to move.”
“He was shocked.”
“So was everybody else.”
“That doesn’t mean she hits him.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
Daniel glanced down.
I saw the hesitation.
Small.
Barely there.
But I had spent his entire childhood watching him lie badly about broken windows, report cards, and the whereabouts of my car keys.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.”
“Daniel.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“They fight.”
“People fight.”
“She throws things sometimes.”
The house seemed to become quieter.
“What things?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
“A phone once.”
“At him?”
“Near him.”
I leaned against the doorframe.
Daniel immediately regretted saying it.
I could see him trying to put the fact back where he had kept it.
“How long have you known?”
“A few months.”
“And Susan?”
“Yes.”
“Denise?”
“I assume.”
“You assume.”
“Mom, Ethan is an adult.”
“So am I, apparently, yet everyone spent tonight explaining my own assault to me.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it isn’t.”
He flinched.
I wished Frank were there.
Not because Frank would have solved anything.
Frank’s preferred method for family conflict had been to disappear into the garage and reorganize tools until everyone stopped yelling.
But I wanted someone in the room who remembered Daniel before he became a father frightened of losing access to his grown son.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Ethan asked us not to.”
That landed differently.
I walked into the kitchen.
Daniel followed after a moment.
The refrigerator hummed beside us.
I opened the freezer, found the peas, wrapped them in a dish towel, and pressed them against my cheek.
Daniel pulled out a chair.
“Did he say why?”
“He said Lauren was stressed and embarrassed and he didn’t want the family judging her.”
“And you accepted that?”
“No.”
“But you stayed quiet.”
“Yes.”
I sat opposite him.
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
Outside, a car passed slowly along the street.
The headlights moved across the kitchen wall and disappeared.
“Is he afraid of her?”
Daniel stared at the table.
“I don’t know.”
That answer scared me more than yes would have.
My phone rang again on the counter.
Ethan.
Daniel looked at it.
I let it ring.
“Answer him.”
“No.”
“Mom.”
“He had all evening to speak.”
“He may be calling now because he finally can.”
I looked at my son.
That was the first useful thing he had said since arriving.
I picked up the phone just before voicemail.
“Hello?”
For a moment there was only breathing.
Then Ethan said, “Grandma?”
His voice was barely audible.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
I closed my eyes.
“Where are you?”
Another pause.
“In my car.”
“Where is Lauren?”
“At the hotel.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you hurt?”
The silence lasted too long.
Daniel straightened in his chair.
“Ethan?”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do tomorrow.”
I lowered the peas from my face.
“We are not talking about tomorrow yet.”
“Everyone keeps asking me.”
“I’m asking about tonight.”
He breathed out shakily.
Then he said something that made Daniel stand so quickly his chair scraped backward across my kitchen floor.
“She hit me Wednesday too.”
Daniel gripped the back of the chair with both hands.
“What do you mean, she hit you?”
His voice was loud enough that Ethan stopped breathing on the other end.
I raised one hand toward Daniel.
“Let him speak.”
Daniel sat down slowly.
Ethan said, “It wasn’t like tonight.”
My stomach tightened at the phrase.
“What was it like?”
“We were arguing.”
“About what?”
“The seating.”
I looked at Daniel.
His eyes closed.
Of course it had been the seating.
Lauren had not slapped me because of a place card.
The place card had simply been the latest object in a much older argument.
May you like
Ethan continued before I could speak.
“She wanted Grandma at the cousins’ table because Denise said the head table would look more balanced with Lauren’s grandparents there.”
