Chương 4
I stopped breathing for a second.
Daniel saw my face.
“What?”
I handed him the phone.
He read the screenshot.
His shoulders sank.
“That was one message.”
“Did you send it?”
“Yes.”
“Was I riding you about money?”
“It was a figure of speech.”
“Was I?”
He looked at the carpet.
“No.”
The fury came back then.
Not cold this time.
It rose hot into my throat.
“You blamed me.”
“I was trying to get Melissa off my back.”
“So you put her on mine.”
“She was demanding money I didn’t have.”
“Then you could have said you didn’t have it.”
“You don’t understand how she gets.”
“I understand perfectly.”
I held up the phone.
“She gets ammunition, and apparently you supply it.”
Daniel winced.
“I screwed up.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t think she’d repeat it to the kids.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“Because adults shouldn’t involve children in financial arguments.”
I stared at him.
“You’re going to use the word shouldn’t right now?”
He sat down again.
The fight went out of his posture.
For several seconds, the only sound came from the air conditioner clicking on.
Then Olivia screamed from downstairs.
I ran before I had time to think.
Daniel was behind me.
We found Ethan and Jason near the kitchen island, with Olivia standing between them.
The broken airplane lay on the counter.
Jason held Ethan’s headphones.
“Give them back,” I said.
Jason tossed them onto the counter.
“They’re not even good.”
Ethan grabbed them.
Olivia glared at Jason.
“You’re such a jerk.”
“Olivia,” I said.
“He is.”
“I know you’re angry.”
“He broke Ethan’s plane and then took his headphones again.”
Jason threw his hands up.
“I was checking if they still worked.”
“Why?”
“Because he said I broke those too.”
“I didn’t say that,” Ethan whispered.
“Yes, you did.”
“I said you almost broke them.”
Jason stepped toward him.
I moved between them.
“Upstairs.”
“I’m not going upstairs.”
“Then go outside.”
“It’s my house too.”
“Jason,” Daniel said.
His voice was different now.
Flat.
Firm.
Jason looked at him.
Daniel pointed toward the stairs.
“Room.”
For a moment, I thought Jason might refuse again.
Then something in his father’s expression made him turn away.
He stomped upstairs hard enough to shake the framed photograph beside the staircase.
Alyssa’s door closed before he reached the landing.
Olivia picked up one of the airplane’s broken pieces.
“Can we fix it?”
Ethan wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
“I don’t want to.”
That stopped me.
For three weeks, he had talked about that airplane every day.
He had chosen the paint color because he said blue planes looked faster.
Now he wouldn’t look at it.
“Okay,” I said.
He leaned into my side.
I put an arm around him.
Daniel stood a few feet away, watching.
“Ethan,” he said quietly.
Ethan didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry Jason did that.”
My son pressed his face harder against my shirt.
Daniel swallowed.
“I’ll make sure he replaces it.”
“No,” Ethan said.
Daniel crouched.
“What?”
“I don’t want one from him.”
There was no drama in the child’s voice.
That made it worse.
Daniel nodded slowly.
“All right.”
Olivia carried the airplane pieces to the dining table and arranged them without being asked.
She matched the broken wing to the jagged edge.
“It could probably still be fixed,” she said.
Ethan shook his head.
“Maybe later.”
I kissed the top of his hair.
“Go brush your teeth.”
He left with Olivia beside him.
Neither child said good night to Daniel.
He remained crouched for a few seconds after they disappeared.
Then he stood.
“I deserve that.”
I opened the refrigerator and stared inside, though I wasn’t hungry.
Leftover pasta.
Half a watermelon.
Three yogurt cups.
A container of strawberries I had meant to wash that morning.
Normal things had become offensive somehow.
I closed the door.
“Melissa sent proof.”
Daniel nodded.
“I know.”
“Do you have any idea how many times you did that?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“That specific thing?”
“Using me as the reason you couldn’t give her what she wanted.”
“A few.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Maybe four or five times.”
I looked at him.
His eyes moved away.
“More?”
“Probably.”
I felt something inside me detach.
Not love.
Not yet.
Something closer to trust’s smaller cousin.
The assumption that my husband had protected my dignity when I wasn’t in the room.
“Why?”
“Because saying Rachel said no ended the argument faster than saying I couldn’t afford something.”
There it was.
Simple enough to fit on a refrigerator magnet.
Cowardice disguised as efficiency.
“You made me the bad guy because you were embarrassed.”
“Yes.”
He said it so quietly I almost missed it.
I leaned against the counter.
For once, Daniel didn’t explain.
He didn’t soften it.
He didn’t tell me Melissa was difficult or that the kids were complicated or that blending families took time.
He just stood there looking miserable.
A phone vibrated upstairs.
Then another.
Alyssa’s voice carried faintly through the ceiling.
“Mom?”
Daniel looked up.
I did too.
Neither of us had told Melissa what had happened downstairs.
A few seconds later, footsteps rushed across the second floor.
Alyssa came down holding her phone.
Her eyes were wide.
“Dad, Mom says she’s coming over.”
Daniel straightened.
“What?”
“She says she’s coming to get us.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
He held out his hand.
“Let me talk to her.”
Alyssa pulled the phone against her chest.
“No.”
“Alyssa.”
“She said not to give you my phone.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
I glanced toward the front window.
Headlights swept across the blinds as a car turned onto our street.
Jason appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Is she here?”
Alyssa checked her screen.
“She’s two minutes away.”
Daniel looked at me.
“What do you want to do?”
The question was almost absurd.
May you like
For years, every crisis involving his children had somehow arrived in my lap already wrapped in his uncertainty.
I looked at the stairs, at Alyssa gripping her phone, at Jason pretending not to be nervous, and at the broken blue airplane resting in pieces on my dining table.
