Chương 3
Twelve minutes suggested something else.
Planning.
Conversation.
History.
Rachel opened the recording.
Ethan’s view began from the breakfast nook. The image shook as he apparently propped the tablet against something. The kitchen appeared at an angle. Sophie was sitting in the wooden chair in her clean birthday dress.
Rachel was not in the room.
Her own voice could be heard faintly from outside.
“Check the freezer shelf under the chicken.”
Daniel used to complain that Rachel could give instructions from three rooms away.
The thought arrived stupidly and vanished.
On the recording, Vanessa stood near the counter filling the glass pitcher with punch.
Sophie asked, “Can I open Grandma’s present before everyone comes?”
Vanessa said, “You always need to be first, don’t you?”
Sophie answered, “It’s my birthday.”
A child’s perfectly reasonable certainty.
Vanessa laughed.
“Exactly.”
Helen entered the edge of the frame carrying paper plates.
She said, “Vanessa.”
Not a warning.
More like a request not to start.
Vanessa asked Sophie, “Did your mother tell you what she said last night?”
Sophie shook her head.
Rachel stopped the video.
Her hand had begun trembling.
She hated that Vanessa saw it.
“What did I supposedly say last night?”
Vanessa looked bored.
“You and I had words.”
“We did not speak last night.”
“Not to me.”
Rachel stared at her.
Vanessa’s mouth tightened.
Helen sank into a chair.
Rachel looked at her.
“Helen.”
Helen said nothing.
Rachel understood.
“You told Vanessa something I said.”
“It wasn’t—”
“What?”
Helen clasped her hands.
“Rachel, you were tired.”
“What did I say?”
“You said the party was too much.”
Rachel waited.
Helen’s eyes filled with shame.
“You said you didn’t know why you had agreed to host twenty-two people when you were already exhausted.”
Rachel remembered.
They had been in the laundry room around eleven the previous night, stuffing goodie bags because Helen had incorrectly counted the children invited.
Rachel had laughed when she said it.
She had been wearing one of Daniel’s old college T-shirts and holding three rolls of ribbon between her teeth.
“I said the party was too much.”
“Yes.”
“Not Sophie.”
“I know.”
Rachel looked at Vanessa.
Vanessa shrugged.
“Children don’t separate those things.”
“Adults do.”
Vanessa said nothing.
Rachel restarted the recording.
On-screen, Sophie asked, “What did Mom say?”
Vanessa put the pitcher down.
“She said this whole birthday is too much and she doesn’t know why she agreed to it.”
Helen turned toward her.
“That isn’t what she meant.”
Vanessa ignored her.
Sophie’s small voice said, “She likes birthdays.”
“She likes Ethan’s.”
Rachel stopped the recording again.
Ethan was watching her closely.
“Mom?”
She forced herself to breathe.
“I’m okay.”
He knew she was lying.
He did not call her on it.
Rachel pressed play.
Sophie said, “Mom likes mine.”
Vanessa answered, “Sweetheart, mothers love their children. That doesn’t mean they like everything about them.”
Helen put the plates down too hard.
“Vanessa, enough.”
Vanessa’s tone remained soft.
“What? Rachel says the same thing.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“You don’t know everything Rachel says.”
Sophie’s fingers went to her dress.
Even on the small screen, Rachel could see them twisting the tulle.
Vanessa came closer.
“You know your mother gets embarrassed when you cry in front of people, right?”
Sophie shook her head.
“She told me.”
Rachel’s stomach turned.
The recording continued.
“She said sometimes she wishes you could be more like Ethan because he doesn’t make everything so difficult.”
Ethan whispered beside Rachel, “That’s when I started recording.”
Rachel glanced at him.
“You weren’t already?”
He shook his head.
“I heard her from the hallway. I went back for the tablet.”
The first several minutes of the recording had apparently captured the tablet being carried, set down, repositioned. The counter showed twelve minutes, but Ethan had only heard part of what came before.
Rachel looked at the screen again.
Sophie said, “Mom doesn't say that.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Not to you.”
Helen said her daughter’s name again.
This time Vanessa turned.
“If you don’t like it, Mom, say I’m lying.”
Helen did not.
Rachel paused the recording.
She looked at Helen.
Helen covered her mouth.
Rachel’s voice came out smaller than she intended.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Rachel—”
“You knew exactly what to do.”
Helen started crying.
Not loudly. Tears simply moved down the deep lines beside her nose.
Rachel felt no satisfaction.
Vanessa picked up a foil tray from the counter and shoved it into the tote she had brought.
“This is grotesque.”
Rachel turned.
Vanessa laughed without humor.
“You’re putting Mom on trial because she froze for a minute.”
“No.”
“That is exactly what you’re doing.”
“I’m asking why she let you tell my daughter I don’t love her.”
“I never said you don’t love her.”
Ethan looked up.
“You kind of did.”
Vanessa stared at him.
His shoulders pulled back.
Rachel moved closer to him.
Vanessa saw that too.
For the first time, her control cracked.
“This family has spent eighteen months pretending Rachel is the only person who lost Daniel.”
The room changed.
There it was.
Daniel.
Rachel had known he was underneath this somehow.
He was underneath most things in the Miller family now.
Helen whispered, “Don’t.”
Vanessa ignored her.
“My brother is dead. My mother lost her son. I lost my brother. The kids lost their father. But we all have to tiptoe around Rachel because she’s the widow.”
Rachel’s fingernails pressed into the edge of the tablet.
Ethan stared at his aunt.
Vanessa pointed toward the stairs.
“And Sophie has learned that if she cries, everybody rearranges the room around her.”
Rachel said, “Leave.”
“She does.”
“Get out.”
“You don’t want to hear it because you’ve built this whole house around not upsetting her.”
“She is seven and her father died.”
“He was my brother.”
Rachel took one step toward Vanessa.
Helen stood abruptly.
“Stop it. Both of you.”
Vanessa looked at her mother.
“Of course.”
Helen flinched.
Rachel heard movement upstairs.
May you like
Sophie.
She lowered her voice.
