Chương 3
I almost smiled at the absurdity of the word balanced.
Nobody had ever struck another human being over visual balance.
“I told her no.”
His voice cracked.
“She said I always take your side.”
“And then?”
“She shoved me.”
“Ethan.”
“I’m okay.”
“That is not an answer.”
A long silence followed.
Then he said, “I grabbed her wrists because she kept pushing me.”
Daniel’s face changed.
He looked sick.
“She told me to let go.”
Ethan swallowed audibly.
“I did.”
“What happened next?”
“She slapped me.”
The peas in my hand had begun to thaw.
Cold water dampened the dish towel.
I put them on the table.
“Once?”
“Yes.”
Daniel leaned toward the phone.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell us?”
“I did tell you.”
“You said she threw your phone.”
“She did that after.”
Daniel pushed away from the table.
“You told me she threw it at the wall.”
“I didn’t want you coming over.”
“So you lied.”
“I left part out.”
“That is lying.”
“Daniel.”
He stopped.
I heard Ethan sniff once.
A small sound.
Almost nothing.
But suddenly he was six again in my mind, standing in my kitchen with a scraped knee and insisting he had not cried because he thought crying made him a baby.
I hated that memory.
It made me want to rescue him.
Rescuing him too quickly might be how we had all helped him get here.
“Ethan,” I said, “where exactly are you?”
“In the hotel parking garage.”
“Which hotel?”
“The Dunhill.”
“Stay in your car.”
“Grandma, I don’t want Dad coming down here.”
Daniel opened his mouth.
I pointed at him.
He closed it.
“Why not?”
“Because if Lauren sees him, everything gets worse.”
“What gets worse?”
“She’ll think I told everybody.”
“You did tell us.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I understood.
There was a difference between disclosure and discovery.
He was not afraid Lauren would learn the truth.
He was afraid she would learn he had stopped protecting her from it.
“Do you want to come here?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I’m supposed to be downstairs at eight in the morning.”
“For what?”
“Pictures.”
I stared at the clock over the stove.
It was nearly midnight.
His wedding had been reduced in his mind to appointments.
Pictures at eight.
Hair at nine.
Transportation at ten thirty.
A ceremony at four.
Sometimes people continued walking toward a disaster because the schedule had already been printed.
“You do not have to decide about the wedding tonight,” I said.
Daniel stared at me.
That was not what he wanted me to say.
Good.
Ethan needed fewer people telling him what decision would make them feel better.
“But you should not go back to Lauren tonight.”
“She’s waiting for me.”
“She can wait.”
“What am I supposed to tell her?”
“The truth, if you can.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Tell her you need space.”
“She’ll call.”
“Let it ring.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“No.”
I looked down at my wet dish towel.
“I make it sound short.”
He was quiet again.
Then he said, “Can I come over?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want Dad here.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
I answered before he could.
“He’ll leave.”
Daniel stared at me.
Ethan said, “Okay.”
“I’ll keep the porch light on.”
After the call ended, Daniel remained seated.
Neither of us spoke for several seconds.
“You’re throwing me out?”
“Yes.”
“He’s my son.”
“I know.”
“I should be here.”
“He specifically asked you not to be.”
“That’s because he thinks I’ll tell him to cancel the wedding.”
“Will you?”
Daniel looked away.
“Yes.”
“Then leave.”
He stood.
His anger filled the kitchen before his body did.
“You’re going to sit here and act neutral?”
“I’m going to let a grown man arrive somewhere without immediately being ordered into another decision.”
“He’s about to marry someone who hits him.”
“Yes.”
“And you think we should discuss his feelings?”
“I think we should stop treating him like a suitcase we’re trying to redirect at an airport.”
Daniel grabbed his keys from the table.
“Sometimes you can be unbelievably cold.”
The words hit a familiar place.
Frank had said something similar to me during the worst year of our marriage, when money was disappearing faster than we could earn it and I had started responding to every crisis with spreadsheets.
I looked at Daniel.
“Possibly.”
He waited for me to fight back.
I did not.
His shoulders lowered half an inch.
“What if he goes through with it?”
“Then we decide what our relationship with him looks like afterward.”
“You’d still go?”
“To the wedding?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Lauren hit me.”
“That sounds like you’re making this about you.”
“It is also about me.”
The answer surprised him.
It surprised me a little too.
I had spent most of my adult life believing that family love meant voluntarily becoming the least important person in every conflict.
It was an exhausting philosophy.
“His problem does not erase what she did to me,” I said.
Daniel looked toward the refrigerator.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say that sooner.”
I nodded.
It was not enough.
It was something.
At the front door, he turned back.
“If he needs me, call.”
“And Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t push him away because you’re angry.”
The sentence annoyed me because it was fair.
“I’ll try not to.”
After Daniel left, I changed out of the navy dress I had bought specifically for the rehearsal dinner.
I stood in my bedroom wearing an old cotton nightgown while I examined my cheek in the mirror.
The redness was fading.
The humiliation was not.
I washed off my makeup.
When I reached for the little jar of face cream beside the sink, my fingers stopped.
May you like
Frank had bought me that brand every Christmas, even though I repeatedly told him buying wrinkle cream as a romantic gift was a questionable strategy.
The last unopened jar he gave me had sat in the cabinet for almost two years after he died.
