Chương 6
“I know you hate me right now.”
Margaret looked away.
“I don’t hate you.”
The answer came honestly.
That was the problem.
Love had not disappeared.
It had become painful.
“I don’t know what I feel.”
Helen’s eyes moved toward the floor.
“That’s fair.”
Margaret almost responded.
Almost asked why.
Why did you do it?
Why did you stand there?
Why did you make me afraid of you?
But she stopped.
Not because she did not want answers.
Because she knew some answers could not be forced.
“You need help,” Margaret said.
Helen looked up.
The words hurt.
Margaret saw it.
But she continued.
“I don’t mean that as an insult.”
Helen held the basket tighter.
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Margaret lowered her voice.
“You scared yourself yesterday too.”
That was the first time Helen looked away.
A tiny movement.
A crack.
“I would never hurt Lily.”
Margaret felt the familiar pull to argue.
But she stopped.
Because that was exactly the complicated truth.
She believed Helen probably would not wake up planning to hurt Lily.
The danger came from everything around that belief.
The need to prove something.
The need to win.
The need to be right.
“I believe you love her,” Margaret said.
Helen looked back at her.
The sentence seemed to hurt more than anger would have.
“But love is not enough if someone’s choices put her in danger.”
Helen’s lips parted.
No words came.
A store announcement interrupted them.
A reminder about a sale in the bakery section.
The ordinary voice from the ceiling felt almost absurd.
Helen wiped beneath one eye quickly.
“I lost my mother when I was younger than you are now.”
Margaret had heard pieces of this story before.
Never the whole thing.
“My mother was sick,” Helen continued.
“And everyone kept telling me they knew what was best.”
She looked at Lily.
“I promised myself I would never let my family fall apart.”
Margaret softened slightly.
Not because the explanation fixed anything.
Because she finally saw where the fear began.
“You thought holding tighter would stop people from leaving.”
Helen nodded once.
The movement was almost invisible.
“Yes.”
“But people are not things you can hold onto.”
Helen looked at her daughter.
“I know that now.”
Margaret wanted to believe her.
A part of her still wanted to.
That part had not died yesterday.
It had only been frightened.
The cashier called for another employee at the front.
Someone’s cart squeaked nearby.
The moment began slipping away.
Helen reached into her purse and removed something small.
A photograph.
She held it out.
Margaret hesitated before taking it.
It was a picture of Margaret as a newborn.
Helen sitting in a hospital chair.
Young.
Tired.
Smiling.
Margaret had never seen the photo before.
“She was there,” Helen said quietly.
“Your grandmother.”
Margaret looked at the woman in the background.
An older woman with tired eyes and one hand resting on Helen’s shoulder.
“My mother hated that picture,” Helen said.
“She said she looked exhausted.”
Margaret studied the image.
“She was exhausted.”
Helen gave a small sad smile.
“Exactly.”
For a moment, they were not arguing.
They were just two women standing in a grocery store aisle, connected by something older than the fight between them.
Then Helen looked at Lily again.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
Margaret placed the photo carefully into her bag.
“Good.”
Helen nodded.
“I just want a chance to prove I can do better.”
Margaret did not answer.
She picked up the car seat.
The weight felt familiar.
A responsibility she understood.
Before she walked away, Helen said one more thing.
“Your father knows more than he told you.”
Margaret stopped.
Slowly, she turned back.
“What does that mean?”
Helen looked frightened for the first time.
Not of Margaret.
Of what she had just revealed.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Mom.”
But Helen stepped back.
The moment was gone.
Margaret left the store carrying Lily and a new question she could not ignore.
What had James known?
And why had he kept it from her?
Margaret did not call James from the parking lot.
She sat in the driver’s seat with the engine off and Lily sleeping quietly behind her, staring at the steering wheel while the question repeated itself.
What had he known?
The hardest part was not the possibility that James had kept something from her.
The hardest part was wondering whether he had done it because he thought he was protecting her.
She understood that instinct.
She had spent the last few days fighting against it in her own way.
The difference was that James’s silence might have allowed the problem to grow.
She drove home slowly.
Not because she was afraid of the road.
Because she was afraid of what waited inside the house.
James was sitting on the living room floor when she arrived, surrounded by folded baby clothes.
It was such an ordinary sight that for a moment she almost forgot why she was angry.
Then she saw his face when he looked up.
He knew something had happened.
“Where were you?”
“The store.”
He nodded.
“You okay?”
Margaret closed the door behind her.
“Mom said you know more than you told me.”
The room became still.
James did not look surprised.
That hurt more than if he had denied it.
He slowly placed the tiny shirt in his hands on top of the laundry pile.
“I was hoping she wouldn’t say that.”
Margaret felt her stomach tighten.
“So it’s true.”
“It depends what you mean.”
“Don’t do that.”
Her voice was sharper than she intended.
“Don’t make it complicated.”
James rubbed his face.
“I’m not trying to.”
“Then tell me.”
He looked toward the hallway where Lily was sleeping.
Then back at Margaret.
“I knew she was struggling.”
Margaret crossed her arms.
“How long?”
“Since before the baby shower.”
The answer landed quietly.
Quiet things could hurt the most.
“Before?”
May you like
James nodded.
“She called me a few times.”
