Chương 10
“Horse,” she said.
Mia took the piece.
Rachel looked away so nobody would see her reaction.
Progress could be ridiculously small.
Half an hour later Mia spilled water.
Everyone froze.
The glass tipped, water spreading across the coffee table.
Mia stared at Vivian.
Rachel saw it.
So did Ethan.
Vivian saw the look on Mia’s face.
Something in her expression broke.
Not dramatically.
Her mouth simply softened.
She reached for a towel.
“It’s water,” she said. “We have more.”
Mia watched her.
Vivian wiped the table.
Nobody praised her.
Rachel was glad.
A seventy-year-old woman did not need applause for not shaming a toddler over spilled water.
But Rachel noticed.
Near the end of the visit, Vivian asked if she could speak to Rachel privately.
Rachel almost said no.
Then agreed.
They stood on Claire’s back patio.
The November air had gone cold.
Vivian wrapped both arms around herself.
For a while she looked through the glass door at Mia, who was making Ethan wear three plastic bracelets.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Rachel leaned against the railing.
“I’m not asking you to say anything.”
“That makes it worse.”
Rachel almost smiled.
Vivian noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Say it.”
“You don’t like not knowing the correct response.”
Vivian’s face hardened.
Rachel immediately regretted the phrasing.
Then Vivian surprised her.
“No. I don’t.”
Rachel waited.
Vivian looked back through the glass.
“When my children were little, people did not negotiate with children.”
“This isn’t about negotiating.”
“I know.”
Vivian rubbed her upper arms.
“Ethan cried constantly as a baby.”
Rachel had heard this story before, usually as evidence that Ethan had been difficult.
Vivian continued.
“His father worked nights that year. Claire was four. My mother had just had a stroke.”
Her voice remained matter-of-fact.
“One night Ethan cried for three hours. I put him in the crib and went into the garage.”
Rachel looked at her.
“I sat in the car.”
Vivian stared at the yard.
“I could still hear him from the garage.”
The story did not excuse anything.
Rachel knew that.
She also understood, for perhaps the first time, that Vivian’s intolerance of children’s disorder might not have begun as vanity.
“I didn’t have anyone,” Vivian said.
Rachel resisted the urge to comfort her automatically.
“I’m sorry.”
Vivian nodded.
“When Claire spilled things, I got angry. When Ethan made noise, I got angry. I thought if I could keep everything orderly, I could keep going.”
Rachel watched her.
“And now when Mia makes noise?”
Vivian’s eyes flashed.
“I know what you’re trying to do.”
“I’m not trying to do anything.”
“You think I traumatized my children.”
Rachel sighed.
“This is exactly why conversations with you are exhausting.”
Vivian turned.
“That’s rude.”
“Yes.”
Rachel rubbed her forehead.
“I’m sorry. But I wasn’t diagnosing you. You told me something. I asked a question.”
Vivian looked away.
For a long time neither spoke.
Then Vivian said, “When Mia hit the cake, I didn’t see a child.”
Rachel’s chest tightened.
Vivian continued quietly.
“I saw three months of planning destroyed in one second.”
Rachel waited.
“And I was furious.”
“Yes.”
“I should not have shouted at her.”
There it was.
Not polished.
Not complete.
No therapy vocabulary.
No grand apology.
Rachel’s eyes filled anyway.
Vivian looked annoyed by the tears.
“Please don’t.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re crying.”
“I do that now.”
Vivian almost smiled.
Then she looked through the glass again.
“I’m sorry I frightened her.”
Rachel swallowed.
“Thank you.”
Vivian’s mouth tightened.
“I am still not forgiving you for hitting Ethan.”
Rachel was startled into a laugh.
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“I think what you did was terrible.”
Rachel looked at her.
“It was.”
Vivian seemed almost disappointed by the agreement.
Rachel added, “You don’t have to forgive me.”
“He’s my son.”
“I know.”
“I worry about him.”
“You should.”
Vivian studied her.
Rachel realized the conversation could easily become grotesque if Vivian began treating Rachel as a danger to Ethan.
She could feel the impulse to defend herself.
Instead she said, “If I ever hit him again, I hope you tell him not to stay with me.”
Vivian stared at her.
Rachel’s voice shook.
“I mean that.”
For once Vivian had no answer.
Inside, Mia pressed both palms to the glass.
“Mama!”
Rachel opened the door.
The visit ended without hugs between the two women.
That seemed right.
Winter came.
Then spring.
Rachel and Ethan continued therapy, first weekly, then every other week.
There were bad arguments.
Not violent ones.
Sometimes that distinction felt embarrassingly low as a standard.
Still, it mattered.
During one fight about Christmas plans, Rachel became so angry she said, “I’m too angry to continue,” exactly as they had practiced.
Then she marched into the bedroom and slammed the door so hard a framed print fell crooked.
She sat on the floor and felt ridiculous.
Five minutes later Ethan texted from the kitchen.
Technically excellent execution. Door could use work.
Rachel laughed despite herself.
She texted back:
Go to hell.
He replied:
Also technically not recommended by Lena.
Rachel stayed in the room another twenty minutes before returning.
They finished the argument.
Not beautifully.
But nobody got frightened.
Vivian changed unevenly.
She apologized once and then backslid.
At Christmas, she told Mia, “Big girls don’t whine,” and Rachel immediately said, “We don’t talk to her like that.”
Vivian rolled her eyes.
Rachel gathered Mia’s coat.
Vivian stared.
“You’re leaving over one sentence?”
Ethan picked up the diaper bag.
“Yes.”
Vivian looked wounded.
Claire looked exhausted.
Marjorie, who had apparently become a permanent witness to Mercer family tension, focused intensely on a bowl of mixed nuts.
They left.
Vivian called Ethan that night.
Rachel did not ask what she said.
That was progress too.
An hour later Ethan told her anyway.
“She said you were waiting for a reason to leave.”
Rachel looked at him.
“What did you say?”
“That she gave us one.”
Rachel nodded.
May you like
“Then she cried.”
Rachel’s instinctive response was irritation.
