Chương 7
“I won’t.”
“And if she destroys records?”
Paul’s face tightened.
“I’ll stop her if I can.”
Thomas looked at Claire.
She could tell he hated those words.
If I can.
Not I will.
Paul stood.
“I should go.”
Claire almost asked where.
Then she realized he meant back to Marie.
Thomas realized it too.
“You’re going home?”
Paul pulled on his coat.
“It is my home.”
“She threatened you.”
“She threatens everybody when she’s scared.”
Claire folded her arms.
“That does not make it safe.”
Paul looked at her swollen cheek.
“No.”
The answer was quiet.
Thomas stepped toward him.
“Stay here.”
Paul blinked.
Claire looked at Thomas.
He seemed almost annoyed with himself for saying it.
“We have the guest room.”
Paul shook his head.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if I stay here tonight, I won’t go back.”
Thomas stared at him.
Paul looked toward the front door.
“And I’m not ready for that yet.”
Claire felt something inside her soften and harden at the same time.
It was the most honest thing Paul had said all night.
Thomas moved aside.
Paul opened the door.
Cold air entered the hallway.
Before stepping out, he turned toward Claire.
“I am sorry.”
She looked at him.
He did not add anything.
No excuse.
No request to forgive him.
Claire nodded once.
Paul left.
Thomas locked the door behind him.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then Thomas pressed his forehead against the wood.
Claire stood a few feet away.
“You asked him to stay.”
“I know.”
“Do you regret it?”
“I don’t know.”
She almost smiled.
“You sound like your father.”
Thomas turned his head just enough to look at her.
“That was cruel.”
“A little.”
He pushed away from the door.
His phone buzzed again from the kitchen.
Neither of them went to check it.
Claire reached for his hand.
This time, he held on.
Upstairs, the baby monitor crackled.
Léa murmured something unintelligible in her sleep.
Thomas looked toward the ceiling.
“I told her Grandma wouldn’t hit you again.”
Claire squeezed his fingers.
“She won’t.”
He looked at her.
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
Claire’s cheek throbbed as she answered.
“Because she doesn’t get close enough to try.”
Thomas looked at her for a long moment, then nodded.
“Okay.”
It was such a small answer that Claire almost missed how much it cost him.
They turned off the downstairs lights one by one.
In the kitchen, Thomas finally checked the phone.
There were seven missed calls, four messages from Chloé, two from Marie through an unknown number, and one from Paul.
The message from Paul was only three words.
I’m home.
Thomas stared at it.
Claire stood beside him.
“Reply.”
He looked at her.
“You think I should?”
“Yes.”
Thomas typed, Good.
Then he deleted it.
He typed, Let me know if you need anything.
He deleted that too.
Finally, he wrote, Lock your bedroom door.
Claire said nothing.
Paul answered almost immediately.
Thomas placed the phone face down.
They slept badly.
Claire woke at 3:12 with the left side of her face pulsing.
Thomas was awake beside her, staring at the ceiling.
“You too?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
She turned carefully onto her back.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Everything.”
“That sounds efficient.”
He gave a tired breath that might have been a laugh.
After a while he said, “I keep trying to remember when I stopped asking questions.”
Claire looked toward the faint green light of the baby monitor.
“Maybe you never started.”
“That’s worse.”
“Probably.”
He turned his head toward her.
“You’re very comforting.”
“I’m saving my best material for daylight.”
They lay there without speaking.
Claire could hear the heating pipes click inside the wall.
At some point, Thomas reached across the mattress and took her hand.
Neither of them mentioned it.
Morning arrived gray and ordinary.
Léa woke at six forty-five demanding cereal and insisting that her stuffed rabbit had also been slapped by Grandma.
Claire froze with the milk carton in her hand.
Thomas crouched beside their daughter.
“Did Grandma slap Bunny?”
Léa nodded solemnly.
“Last night.”
“In your dream?”
“No.”
She considered this.
“Maybe.”
Thomas looked at Claire.
The conversation with Léa suddenly felt larger than either of them.
Claire sat beside her daughter at the table.
“Sometimes when something scary happens, your brain keeps playing with it when you sleep.”
Léa looked suspicious.
“My brain is naughty?”
“No.”
“Then why did it make Grandma slap Bunny?”
Claire opened her mouth, then stopped.
Thomas rescued her.
“Brains are weird.”
Léa seemed satisfied by that.
She spooned cereal into her mouth.
“Daddy’s brain is weird.”
“Extremely,” Claire said.
Thomas glared at her.
Léa giggled.
For three minutes, they were simply a tired family eating breakfast the morning after Christmas.
Then Thomas’s phone rang.
He looked at the number.
“Law office.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
Thomas answered and stepped into the living room.
He had submitted an online request before going to bed, attaching none of the documents but describing the situation in cautious terms.
Claire listened to half of the conversation without intending to.
Thomas said the words forged signature twice.
He said identity misuse once.
He said no, I did not authorize it.
Then he wrote something on the back of a grocery receipt.
When he returned, he looked more awake.
“They can see us at eleven.”
Claire glanced at Léa.
“Both of us?”
“The lawyer said you should come if you can.”
“Why?”
“Because of the assault.”
Claire touched her cheek automatically.
“What does that have to do with the loan?”
“He said maybe nothing.”
“Comforting.”
“He wants the whole context.”
Léa waved her spoon.
“I have context.”
Thomas looked at her.
“You have cereal.”
“I have both.”
Claire laughed despite herself.
They arranged for Léa to spend two hours with Claire’s older sister, Emma.
Thomas hesitated before telling Emma anything.
Claire watched him start with, There was an argument, then stop.
May you like
“There was an assault,” he said instead.
Emma went silent on the phone.
