Chương 6
His hooks were still there.
His children were upstairs.
His mother was sitting at the table.
His sister had just told his daughter that Rachel had sent him out to die.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, everyone still seemed to be negotiating ownership of the dead.
Ethan reached for another pretzel.
Rachel pushed the bowl closer to him.
“Did Aunt Vanessa say things to you too?”
He shrugged.
“What things?”
“She asks if I remember Dad better than Sophie.”
Helen shut her eyes.
Rachel kept her voice neutral.
“What do you say?”
“I say yeah.”
“That’s okay.”
“She says that means I have to make sure Sophie knows the real stuff.”
“What real stuff?”
He picked salt from the edge of the pretzel.
“Like Dad didn’t like Minneapolis.”
Rachel’s pulse jumped.
Helen whispered, “Vanessa.”
Ethan looked between them.
“She told you?” Rachel asked.
“No. Sophie did.”
Rachel felt tired in a way that seemed structural.
“When?”
“Like two weeks ago.”
Sophie had started asking odd questions two weeks ago.
Did people have to move if their mothers got new jobs?
Could grandmothers come to Minnesota?
Was Minnesota far enough away that dead people could not find you?
Rachel had assumed it came from something at school.
She had answered patiently.
She had not asked who put Minneapolis into her daughter’s head.
“Anything else?” she asked.
Ethan looked miserable.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“I should have told you.”
Rachel reached across the table.
“No.”
“I knew she was being weird.”
“You are ten.”
“I could’ve told you.”
“You did tell me.”
“Today.”
“That counts.”
He looked unconvinced.
Rachel squeezed his hand.
“You are not responsible for supervising adults.”
His eyes filled.
He blinked hard and pulled his hand away, embarrassed.
“Can I have cake?”
Rachel looked at the untouched cake.
“Yes.”
Helen whispered, “Rachel.”
“It’s his sister’s birthday.”
“But Sophie—”
“We’ll save her a piece.”
Ethan found the cake knife.
Rachel took it from him before he amputated a finger.
She cut three slices.
Helen did not eat hers.
Rachel did.
She stood at the counter in ivory trousers and a wrinkled satin blouse, eating pink cake from a paper plate while a red punch stain dried near the grout line.
It tasted too sweet.
She finished every bite.
At four-thirty, she sent a message to the parents of the invited children saying Sophie had become overwhelmed and they needed to cancel the party. She did not explain.
Two parents asked if Sophie was sick.
One asked whether they should drop presents off.
Rachel typed three different answers and deleted them.
Finally she wrote that Sophie was physically fine and they would celebrate another day.
Vanessa called twice.
Rachel did not answer.
Then came a text.
You are making this bigger than it was.
Rachel took a screenshot.
Another arrived.
I said something cruel. I admit that. But don’t rewrite the entire family because of one bad afternoon.
Rachel took another screenshot.
Helen watched from across the kitchen.
“She’s going to keep calling.”
“I know.”
“She’ll calm down.”
Rachel looked at her.
“I don’t care.”
Helen’s expression changed.
For fifteen years, Rachel had cared.
She had cared whether Vanessa felt included, whether Helen felt abandoned, whether Daniel felt caught between wife and sister, whether Christmas alternated fairly, whether the children spent enough time with their grandmother, whether Vanessa’s divorce made Mother’s Day awkward, whether somebody remembered Vanessa did not eat cilantro.
She had cared herself into exhaustion.
Helen said quietly, “You can’t cut her off forever.”
Rachel put the phone facedown.
“Watch me.”
She regretted that sentence too.
Not because it was cruel.
Because it sounded like a threat, and Rachel did not want protection of her children to become another Miller family contest.
She rubbed her forehead.
“I don’t know what forever looks like.”
Helen nodded.
“But she is not seeing Sophie or Ethan right now.”
“You can’t punish the children by taking away their aunt.”
Rachel looked at her.
“You think that’s punishment?”
Helen did not answer.
Upstairs, Sophie called for her.
Rachel left the kitchen.
That night, Sophie slept in Rachel’s bed.
Ethan claimed he was too old to do the same, then appeared at eleven-forty with a pillow and said the air vent in his room was making a clicking noise.
It was not.
Rachel moved over.
The three of them lay crosswise beneath the comforter like survivors on a small raft.
At two in the morning, Rachel woke to Sophie whispering.
“Mom?”
“I’m here.”
“Are you tired of me?”
Rachel stared into the dark.
Sophie was facing away from her.
Rachel reached under the blanket until she found her daughter’s hand.
“Sometimes I’m tired.”
Sophie did not move.
“Sometimes I’m tired of making lunches,” Rachel said. “Sometimes I’m tired of socks being everywhere. Sometimes I’m tired of asking people to put cups in the dishwasher instead of beside it.”
From the other side of the bed, Ethan muttered, “That seems targeted.”
Rachel nearly smiled.
Sophie’s fingers loosened.
“But I’m never tired of being your mother.”
“Even when I cry?”
“Even then.”
“Even when I get mad?”
“Yes.”
“What if I’m difficult?”
Rachel looked at the ceiling.
Nobody was supposed to get to place a word like difficult inside a seven-year-old and leave it there.
“Then we figure out what’s difficult.”
Sophie was quiet.
“Together?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Was Daddy tired of me?”
Rachel’s throat tightened.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
Because he once drove forty minutes back from the airport after realizing Sophie's stuffed rabbit was in his suitcase.
Because he let her paint one toenail green while he was asleep and kept it that way for two weeks.
Because he stood in the kitchen at midnight making pancakes after Sophie got her tonsils out and announced she could finally swallow something other than ice.
Rachel said none of those things.
“Because he told me.”
It was the simplest answer.
Sophie accepted it.
May you like
Her breathing eventually slowed.
Rachel did not sleep again.
