Chương 4
A lawn mower started somewhere beyond the neighboring property.
The sound was ordinary and distant and completely wrong for the moment.
I became aware of mosquitoes around my ankles.
Raymond slapped one against his forearm and looked annoyed at himself for doing it.
Nobody spoke.
Finally Donovan said, “Please.”
Fiona’s shoulders dropped a fraction.
“Don.”
“I’m asking you.”
She looked at him then, and whatever she saw made her angry again.
“You think I’m lying.”
“I think I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It is to me.”
I had heard that sentence before.
Not from Fiona.
From Arthur.
Years ago, when our mother questioned some bill he had hidden in a kitchen drawer, he had told her that doubt was disrespect.
Fiona had been fourteen.
Apparently she had been listening.
I unfolded the evaluation.
“The candidate did not complete the final qualification.”
Arthur’s face emptied.
Fiona shut her eyes.
I kept reading.
“Candidate was removed from the exercise following a safety violation and referred for remedial training.”
Donovan said nothing.
Raymond looked down.
Arthur stared at Fiona.
“That’s not possible.”
She opened her eyes.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“The report says—”
“I know what it says.”
Her voice cracked across the range.
I stopped.
She pressed her lips together.
When she spoke again, she was quieter.
“He hated me.”
“Wraith?”
Donovan asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I challenged him.”
Raymond’s expression tightened.
“How?”
Fiona looked at him.
“You weren’t there.”
“No.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m asking.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“He singled me out from the beginning.”
The story came quickly now, but not smoothly.
She said the instructor had disliked her confidence.
She said he had given contradictory directions.
She said the safety violation had been technical, not dangerous.
She said other candidates had made worse mistakes.
She said she had deserved another attempt.
Each claim might have contained a piece of truth.
That was what made listening difficult.
Fiona rarely invented things from nothing.
She took reality and moved the furniture around.
“What happened after you were removed?”
Donovan asked.
“I appealed.”
“With who?”
“My chain.”
“And?”
She looked toward the locked rifle cabinet.
“They said I could retrain later.”
Arthur exhaled.
“There.”
He pointed at me as if she had just been acquitted.
“So she qualified afterward.”
“No,” I said.
Fiona flinched.
Arthur’s hand lowered.
I removed another sheet.
“The retraining was scheduled twice.”
Fiona’s cheeks flushed.
“She didn’t attend either session.”
Donovan stared at her.
“Why not?”
“I had reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“My mother was sick the first time.”
The word mother hit all three of us differently.
Arthur looked away.
I felt something cold settle beneath my ribs.
Our mother had been undergoing chemotherapy then.
I remembered driving her to an infusion on a Tuesday while Fiona texted that she couldn’t get leave.
The appointment had lasted nearly six hours.
Mom had thrown up in a paper bag on the ride home and apologized for ruining my passenger-side floor mat.
I had forgotten the date until that moment.
“You said you couldn’t get leave,” I said.
Fiona’s eyes met mine.
“I couldn’t.”
“Then why was the retraining canceled as a family emergency?”
“I needed the day.”
“For what?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
She turned toward Donovan.
“My mother was dying.”
“She was sick for fourteen months,” I said.
Fiona spun back.
“Don’t.”
“You don’t get to use her as an alibi unless it’s true.”
“I said don’t.”
Arthur stepped between us.
“That’s enough.”
“No,” Fiona said.
Her eyes stayed on me.
“Let her do it.”
“Do what?”
“Make herself the good daughter.”
I almost laughed.
It came out as a breath.
“This isn’t about Mom.”
“It’s always about Mom with you.”
Donovan looked between us, lost now in a history he had never been invited into.
Arthur rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Jesus Christ.”
Fiona’s voice went low.
“You were there every appointment, every grocery run, every stupid pharmacy pickup, making sure everybody saw.”
“I was there because she needed somebody.”
“And I was trying to build a career.”
“You told us you couldn’t come.”
“I couldn’t.”
“You just said you used her illness to cancel training.”
Her face hardened.
“I had another evaluation.”
The contradiction hung there.
Raymond looked away again.
Donovan didn’t.
“What evaluation?”
Fiona swallowed.
“Something for a different assignment.”
“So your mother wasn’t the reason.”
“I said I had reasons.”
I felt the folder bend slightly in my grip.
For three weeks, I had treated Fiona’s record as a professional problem with family consequences.
Now the order reversed.
My mother’s illness had become part of the evidence.
I hated Fiona for that.
I hated myself for caring enough to use it.
Arthur stepped toward me.
“Put the damn papers away.”
I did.
Not because he ordered me.
Because I suddenly couldn’t stand looking at them.
Fiona’s breathing slowed.
She seemed to mistake that for victory.
“So there.”
“No,” Donovan said.
She turned.
His expression frightened her more than anger would have.
He looked tired.
“Where did the badge come from?”
Fiona said nothing.
“Fi.”
“It was issued.”
“Joselyn just said the authorization was false.”
“She said the signature didn’t match.”
“That is what false means in normal-person language.”
Raymond almost smiled, then didn’t.
Fiona’s hand went to the badge again.
“I earned it.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I earned it.”
“How did you get it?”
Arthur stepped in.
“Donovan, maybe this is something you two discuss later.”
Donovan looked at him.
“With respect, Arthur, stay out of it.”
My father went red.
Fiona whispered, “Don’t talk to him like that.”
Donovan ignored her.
“Did you submit something?”
“No.”
“Did somebody do it for you?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
She looked at me.
The answer was there before she spoke.
Not in words.
In resentment.
In calculation.
May you like
In the sudden awareness that whatever she said next could cost her more than a badge.
I had seen that expression once before, three years earlier, when she backed our mother’s car into a concrete post and let Arthur blame me for the damage because I had driven it the previous afternoon.
