Chương 2
“You know,” Emily said to her grandmother.
Margaret looked up.
“I know some of it.”
“Some of what?”
“Michael asked us to keep certain things safe.”
Susan made an angry little laugh.
“That's a very generous way to describe it.”
Margaret flinched.
Emily returned to the letter.
There were only a few more lines.
She read aloud because suddenly she didn't trust anyone else in the room to tell her what the page said.
“‘Whatever Mom tells you, don't give her the second key.’”
Susan closed her eyes.
Emily's pulse beat against the metal pressed into her palm.
She continued silently.
The silver key opens the steel case beneath the spare tire. Read everything before you decide who is right. Especially me.
She stopped.
There was one more sentence.
Show it to someone who doesn't need anything from you.
Her father's signature sat underneath.
Not Dad.
Michael Parker.
The way he had signed checks and permission slips and the postcards he used to send from work trips when Emily was little.
Susan opened her eyes.
“Give me the key.”
“No.”
“Emily, you have no idea what's in that box.”
“You do.”
Susan's answer came too slowly.
“No.”
Robert turned his head.
Susan saw it.
“Oh, don't start.”
“You knew enough to hide the car.”
“I hid nothing.”
“You changed the storage lock.”
“Because you kept threatening to move it.”
“It was sitting there rotting.”
“I paid for the storage.”
“It was my building.”
“You sent me bills.”
“You didn't pay half of them.”
“Stop.” Emily's voice cracked across the room.
They did.
She hated that they did.
She hated that suddenly everyone was watching her like she had become the adult in charge of a family that had apparently been having the same argument for years without bothering to tell her.
She folded her father's letter carefully.
“I'm opening the case.”
Susan moved toward the front door before Emily did.
“No.”
Robert stepped sideways.
Susan stopped.
Her father was not a large man anymore, but there was something in the way he planted his feet that made the distance between them feel solid.
“Get out of my way.”
“No.”
“This is my house.”
Robert glanced around the room.
“No, it isn't.”
Susan stared at him.
Emily had forgotten that technically the house still belonged partly to Robert and Margaret. They had helped Susan refinance after Michael died. Nobody discussed it.
Susan's cheeks colored.
“Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Use money to win an argument.”
Robert's expression changed.
Something landed.
Margaret looked at the floor again.
Emily shoved the car fob into her sweater pocket.
“I don't care whose house this is. I'm going outside.”
Susan's voice went low.
“Your father wasn't well when he wrote that.”
Emily stopped.
It was exactly the kind of sentence that could rearrange an entire memory.
She turned.
“What does that mean?”
“He was sick.”
“He had lymphoma. He wasn't insane.”
“I didn't say insane.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“He was scared. He was angry. He had been on medication for months. He wasn't sleeping.”
Robert said, “Michael knew exactly what he was doing.”
Susan rounded on him. “You weren't married to him.”
“No. I was his father.”
“And that made you an expert on our marriage?”
“No.”
“Because you sure behaved like one.”
Margaret crossed the space between them.
“Susan, stop.”
The room had begun to feel too warm.
Tree lights glowed against the window. Somewhere in the kitchen the coffee maker clicked as its heating plate cycled. The smell of cinnamon rolls Margaret had brought that morning still hung in the air.
Emily had been planning to ask for another one.
That was twenty minutes ago.
Her life twenty minutes ago seemed embarrassingly naive.
She opened the front door.
Cold air came in around her legs.
Susan followed.
“Put shoes on.”
Emily almost turned around just because of how normal the instruction sounded.
Instead she looked down at her light socks.
“Right.”
She shoved her feet into the boots by the entry mat without tying them.
Robert grabbed his coat.
Margaret put on hers.
Susan remained beside the tree.
“You're all being ridiculous.”
Robert zipped his coat.
“Then you won't mind us looking.”
Susan's face hardened.
“I do mind.”
That was the answer.
Emily stepped outside.
Snow crunched under her boots.
The yellow car sat ten yards away, bow lifting slightly in the morning wind. Up close it looked less like a Christmas surprise and more like evidence.
Emily stopped beside the driver's door.
She had wanted a yellow car since college, not this specific car, just something bright. Her father used to tease her because she had a gift for losing gray rental cars in parking garages.
“Buy something nobody can misplace,” she'd told him once.
He had laughed.
Apparently he had listened.
That hurt more than she expected.
Robert stopped behind her.
“He bought it in October.”
Emily didn't turn.
“The year he died?”
“Yes.”
“He died in December.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew?”
Robert stared toward the street.
“Not until afterward.”
“How long afterward?”
“Three days.”
She looked at him.
“You've known for three years.”
He accepted the accusation without arguing.
“Yes.”
Margaret reached them.
“Your grandfather thought we should tell you.”
“But you didn't.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Margaret's eyes filled but she didn't cry.
“Because sometimes knowing what the right thing is and doing it are very different experiences.”
Emily gave a short, humorless laugh.
“That sounds like something people say when they want credit for knowing better.”
Margaret nodded once.
“Yes.”
That answer took some of Emily's anger with it and made room for something heavier.
Susan came through the front door carrying Emily's coat.
She held it out.
“You'll freeze.”
Emily took it because she was cold.
Neither said thank you.
The car was unlocked.
Emily lifted the rear hatch.
Inside smelled faintly of plastic, fabric, and the stale enclosed air of a vehicle that had spent too much time stored.
May you like
The cargo floor was clean.
She removed the carpeted panel.
