Chương 4
The next morning, Lily asked why the firetruck had stayed at Grandpa’s house.
Claire was making oatmeal.
She stopped with the wooden spoon in her hand.
“It was too big to bring with us yesterday.”
“Grandpa said it was mine.”
“It is.”
“Is Aunt Amanda using it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Claire turned down the burner.
Children asked questions with no respect for the categories adults used to hide from themselves.
“Because it belongs to you.”
Lily considered this.
Then she said, “She doesn’t like me.”
Claire set the spoon down.
She crouched.
“Look at me.”
Lily did.
“What Aunt Amanda did was wrong.”
“Because she was mad?”
“She can be mad.”
Lily frowned.
Claire tried again.
“People get to feel mad. They don’t get to hurt you because they feel mad.”
“She said we’re not family.”
Claire’s throat tightened.
Lily waited.
Claire could have said Amanda was wrong.
She could have said they were all family no matter what.
The second answer would have been easier and less true.
“Families are supposed to take care of each other,” Claire said. “Sometimes grown-ups forget how.”
“Did Aunt Amanda forget?”
“Yes.”
“For a long time?”
Claire almost laughed.
“Maybe.”
Lily accepted that more easily than Claire expected.
“Can I have blueberries?”
Claire stood.
“Yeah.”
“Not squishy ones.”
“Your standards have been noted.”
She opened the refrigerator.
Behind her, Lily began humming.
Claire gripped the refrigerator handle and stayed there for three breaths longer than necessary.
Her phone buzzed on the counter.
Dad.
She let it ring.
Then it stopped and a text appeared.
Please call me when Lily’s awake.
A second message arrived.
I found the tiara.
Claire stared at the screen.
Where?
He replied almost immediately.
Trash can in the garage.
Claire read the answer again.
Who put it there?
This time he did not respond for several minutes.
Finally:
Marlene says Amanda did.
Claire sat at the kitchen table.
Lily looked over from her oatmeal.
“Are you sad?”
Claire placed the phone facedown.
“A little.”
“Because Grandpa’s truck?”
Claire smiled despite herself.
“Something like that.”
At ten thirty, Richard came to Claire’s apartment.
She almost did not let him in.
He stood outside holding a clear food-storage container.
Inside it was the tiara.
One side was bent. A plastic tooth on the comb had snapped off.
Claire stared at it through the lid.
“Why is it in that?”
“I didn’t know if the police would want it.”
That surprised her.
Richard noticed.
“I do listen sometimes.”
Claire opened the door wider.
He stepped inside.
Lily was on the living-room floor building a plastic tower with mismatched blocks.
When she saw him, she got up but did not run over the way she usually did.
Richard saw that too.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“Hi.”
“I brought something.”
He held up the container.
Lily’s face tightened.
“I don’t want it.”
Richard lowered his hand.
“Okay.”
She went back to her blocks.
He stood in Claire’s living room holding the broken tiara like a specimen from a crime lab.
Claire took it from him and set it on the kitchen counter.
“What happened last night?”
Richard did not sit until she did.
“Marlene says she didn’t know Amanda was coming.”
Claire waited.
“She says Amanda texted that she wanted to drop off a gift.”
“What gift?”
“No idea.”
“Was there one?”
“No.”
Claire nodded.
“Mark?”
“He says Amanda wanted to clear the air.”
Claire looked at him.
Richard gave a tired shake of his head.
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“I told them both to stay away from you.”
“After.”
“Yes. After.”
He rubbed his palms over his knees.
Claire had inherited that gesture from him. She hated noticing.
“What does Amanda say she did?”
Richard looked at the floor.
“She says Lily was riding the truck too close to the grill.”
“She wasn’t.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t there.”
“No, but there’s no reason she would have been. The truck was twenty feet from the grill when I left.”
Claire said nothing.
Richard went on.
“Amanda says she took the tiara off because Lily was acting spoiled when she told her to move. She says the truck rolled when she pushed it aside and Lily tripped trying to get it.”
“She kicked it.”
“I told her that’s what you said.”
“What did she say?”
“That you’re lying.”
Claire’s fingernails pressed into her palm.
Richard added quickly, “I don’t believe that.”
“Does Marlene?”
He hesitated.
Claire leaned back.
“Of course.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Then answer.”
“Marlene says it happened fast.”
Claire looked toward the living room.
Lily carefully placed a yellow block on top of a blue one.
“Did she see Amanda take the tiara?”
“Yes.”
“Did she see Amanda kick the truck?”
Richard swallowed.
“She says she saw Amanda’s foot move it.”
“Her foot move it.”
“I’m telling you the words she used.”
“No. You’re hiding inside the words she used.”
His face hardened.
“You think this is easy for me?”
Claire looked at him for a long time.
Then she said, “No.”
He seemed surprised.
She continued.
“I think it’s been easy for you for years.”
Richard’s mouth opened.
Claire did not let him interrupt.
“You let Marlene rename every ugly thing Amanda did until it sounded accidental. Amanda didn’t insult me at Thanksgiving. She was stressed. She didn’t tell everyone I was trying to turn you against Marlene. She was worried about her mother. Mark didn’t call me a parasite. He’d been drinking. And when I finally said Lily wouldn’t be around them anymore, I was the one dividing the family.”
“I never called you that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It is when you sit there quietly while everyone else says it.”
Richard looked toward Lily.
His voice dropped.
“I was trying not to lose my marriage.”
Claire felt the anger in her shift.
Not vanish.
Change.
There it was at last.
Not confusion.
Not neutrality.
A choice.
May you like
“You could have told me that.”
“I’m telling you now.”
