Chương 8
After a while he said, “My father did.”
“Your father did what?”
“Expected me to come back.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
“Were you happy?”
His eyes lifted.
“That’s irrelevant.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It was work.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Richard stood.
The conversation was over because he had decided the next answer would cost too much.
Elaine came downstairs before he reached the hall.
She stopped on the third step from the bottom.
Richard looked up.
For the first time Natalie saw fear on his face.
Not fear that Elaine would leave.
Fear that he would be seen wanting her not to.
“Are you coming?” he asked.
Elaine held the railing.
“No.”
Richard’s jaw moved.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“We can talk at the hotel.”
“I don’t want to.”
“This has gone far enough.”
Elaine’s fingers tightened around the rail.
Natalie almost stepped forward.
Elaine glanced at her.
A tiny shake of the head.
Do not help me.
Natalie stayed where she was.
Richard looked from one woman to the other.
His humiliation was visible now.
That made him dangerous in a way shouting would not have.
“So this is what we’re doing,” he said.
Elaine swallowed.
“I’m staying here tonight.”
“In a house that belongs to her.”
“Yes.”
“After she deceived us.”
Elaine looked at him.
“She bought a house you chose to sell.”
Richard’s face hardened.
“You’re taking her side.”
“No.”
A pause.
“I’m taking mine.”
Natalie felt something in the room change.
Elaine did too.
Her hand began to shake against the railing.
Richard stared at his wife.
Then he picked up his duffel.
He left without saying goodbye.
The front door closed softly.
Elaine remained on the stairs.
Natalie waited.
After perhaps ten seconds, Elaine sat down on the step.
“Could you get me some water?”
Natalie did.
The next week was not triumphant.
There were no satisfying expulsions, no family group chat full of apologies, no neat line dividing everyone into decent people and villains.
There were contractors.
Insurance forms.
A lender asking for a document Natalie had already uploaded twice.
A moving company that sent a truck six feet too tall for the alley clearance.
Richard’s assistant calling to ask whether a pair of framed diplomas belonged in storage.
Elaine crying because the diplomas were Daniel’s and had been hanging in Richard’s study for twelve years.
Daniel sleeping on the sofa for three nights because he and Natalie could not decide whether they were reconciling or merely exhausted.
Lily asking every morning whether Grandpa Richard was still mad.
Natalie answering, “I don’t know.”
On Thursday night, Daniel found her at the kitchen table with a spreadsheet open on her laptop.
“What are you doing?”
“Renovation budget.”
He sat across from her.
“You’re still planning to move there?”
“I bought it for us.”
“You bought it without us.”
Natalie closed the laptop.
“Yes.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“You keep agreeing with me.”
“Would you prefer a fight?”
“I think I would.”
“Why?”
“Because then I’d know what to do.”
She looked at him.
That was painfully Daniel.
He liked medicine partly because the worst moments still had algorithms. Airway. Blood pressure. Dose. Time.
Marriage did not.
Natalie pushed the laptop aside.
“I was wrong not to tell you.”
He nodded.
“I was also right about your father.”
Daniel sighed.
“There.”
“What?”
“That.”
“What am I supposed to say? I should apologize for secretly buying the house, and then pretend the reason doesn’t matter?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.”
She waited.
He stared at the table.
“I’m angry at him,” he said. “And somehow you’re the person I feel safe being angry at.”
Natalie’s expression softened despite herself.
“That’s unfair.”
“I know.”
“Very.”
“I know.”
“You’re doing it anyway.”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
At least they were getting somewhere.
Daniel looked toward Lily’s room.
“I keep replaying those three seconds.”
Natalie said nothing.
“I saw his hand hit the cake. I saw Lily. I heard what he said.” He swallowed. “And my first thought was, He doesn’t mean it.”
Natalie looked at him.
“Not protect her. Not get her out. Not even what the hell. I thought about what he meant.”
“You’ve been translating him your whole life.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“Apparently.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I know.”
“I need you to hear that part too.”
“I do.”
Natalie folded her arms.
“When somebody hurts Lily, I can’t wait for you to interpret them.”
“I know.”
“You have to act.”
“I know.”
He looked at her.
“And when somebody is controlling me, you don’t get to secretly rearrange our entire life to rescue me.”
Natalie held his gaze.
“I know.”
They sat there.
A siren passed on the avenue.
Daniel reached for the closed laptop, then stopped before touching it.
“Can I see the numbers?”
Natalie looked at his hand.
“Yes.”
It was not forgiveness.
It was access.
For the moment, that was enough.
Two days later Richard sent Lily a gift.
A dollhouse.
It was enormous.
The delivery driver needed Daniel’s help to get the box through the apartment door.
Natalie stared at it.
“Absolutely not.”
Daniel read the card.
There were only four words.
Happy birthday. Grandpa Richard.
“No apology?” Natalie asked.
Daniel shook his head.
Lily circled the box.
“Is it mine?”
Natalie and Daniel looked at each other.
The parenting disagreement began almost instantly.
“We should send it back,” Natalie said.
“She’s four.”
“That’s why.”
“She doesn’t understand the politics.”
“She understands he was mean and then sent a giant present.”
Daniel frowned.
“So?”
“So I don’t want her learning that expensive things are how adults skip apologies.”
“That’s not what she’s learning.”
“She literally asked if he was still Grandpa because he destroyed her cake.”
“And sending this back could make her think she’s being punished.”
Natalie looked at Lily.
The girl had begun reading the picture on the box upside down.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Ask her.”
“She’s four.”
May you like
“You said she notices things.”
Natalie hated when he used her own arguments competently.
