Chương 6
“That one’s more common.”
He gave her a quick sideways glance.
“You trying to make me feel better?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She picked up the larger bracelet.
Marcus stopped her.
“Attorney said photograph first.”
Claire let go immediately.
“Right.”
They both stared at it.
After a moment Marcus said, “You know I didn’t know you were alive.”
Claire’s throat tightened.
“You saw me breathing.”
“I mean after.”
“I know what you mean.”
He folded the cloth over the glass.
“When Mrs. Vale said you’d died, I believed her.”
Claire turned.
“She told you too?”
“Not directly. I heard her tell Mr. Vale.”
“When?”
“The day they brought Oliver home.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Was he tiny?”
Marcus’s face softened.
“Very.”
“Was he okay?”
“He screamed the entire drive from the lawyer’s office.”
Despite herself, Claire smiled.
“He screamed the first night in the hospital too.”
Marcus looked at her.
She pressed her lips together.
The smile vanished.
“I should have been there.”
Marcus did not answer.
That was kinder than telling her she had not known.
Oliver appeared in the kitchen doorway carrying a cereal bowl with both hands.
“Marcus says I’m not supposed to be near the glass.”
“He’s right,” Claire said.
Oliver walked around the long way.
He sat on the floor beside her.
Richard returned ten minutes later carrying a locked document box.
Margaret followed him.
Her face was pale.
“What’s that?” Oliver asked.
Richard set the box on the console.
“Papers.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
Margaret said, “Richard, there is no reason to involve him in every detail.”
Oliver glared.
Richard sat beside his son.
“He doesn’t need every detail. But he gets the truth when we know it.”
Oliver spooned cereal into his mouth.
“Do we know Claire is my mom?”
Richard looked at Claire.
“No.”
Oliver chewed.
“Pretty sure.”
Claire almost corrected his grammar.
The urge was so ordinary she nearly cried.
The police arrived forty-three minutes later.
Not with sirens.
Not with handcuffs.
Two officers took separate statements.
A detective called later from downtown and arranged to speak with them the following morning.
The officers photographed the broken frame and the hidden items after Richard explained that they might be evidence. They did not arrest Margaret.
Claire had expected that.
She was still disappointed.
One officer asked whether Claire intended to remove Oliver from the home.
“No.”
“Has anyone threatened you?”
Claire glanced at the scratch above her eyebrow reflected faintly in the foyer mirror.
“No.”
The scratch came from a storage shelf two days earlier.
For one irrational moment she wished Margaret had caused it.
It would have made things simpler.
Villains were easier when they committed every wrong.
The officer gave her a card.
“If you feel unsafe, call.”
Margaret stood within hearing distance.
Claire put the card in her apron pocket.
At one thirty, Richard told the household staff they could leave with pay.
At two, he asked Claire if she wanted to use a guest room.
“No.”
Oliver’s face fell.
Claire crouched near him.
“I said I wouldn’t disappear.”
“You’re leaving.”
“For tonight.”
“Why?”
Because she needed walls that had never known the Vale family.
Because she needed to cry where Oliver could not hear.
Because the thought of sleeping one floor below him was too much.
“Because grown-ups sometimes need space.”
He scowled.
“Another grown-up answer.”
“Yeah.”
Richard offered to have Marcus drive her.
Claire refused.
Margaret did not come down to see her leave.
At the front door, Oliver hugged her.
This time he did not ask first.
Claire’s arms went around him before she could stop herself.
She felt the knobs of his spine beneath his shirt.
His hair smelled like shampoo and chocolate cereal.
She closed her eyes.
Seven years disappeared for half a second.
Then returned all at once.
She released him first.
“I’ll call,” she said.
“You don’t have my number.”
Richard and Claire looked at each other.
Oliver sighed with theatrical disappointment.
“You guys are bad at this.”
Richard gave Claire his number.
She typed it into her phone.
Her hand shook so badly she entered one digit twice.
Oliver corrected it.
Outside, Claire stood on the mansion steps and realized she did not know how she was getting home.
Her bus stop was almost a mile away.
Marcus pulled the sedan around anyway.
She laughed when she saw him.
“I said no.”
“You said no to Mr. Vale.”
“That includes you.”
“No, ma’am. I work in technicalities.”
She got in.
Halfway to her apartment Marcus asked, “You hungry?”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a yes-or-no question.”
“It absolutely was.”
He stopped at a diner.
Claire ordered coffee.
Marcus ordered fries and did not comment when she ate half of them.
The television over the counter showed a baseball game with the sound off.
Two teenagers argued about whether to split pancakes.
A delivery driver kept checking his phone.
The world had failed to stop.
Claire found that offensive.
She also found it useful.
At home, she sat on the floor because the couch was covered with clean laundry.
For an hour she did nothing.
Then she pulled a cardboard box from the closet.
Inside were seven years of a dead child.
A hospital discharge summary.
Three sympathy cards.
The knitted blue cap the nurse had accidentally packed into Claire’s belongings.
A letter she had written on what would have been his first birthday.
Another on his second.
She had stopped after five because the letters made therapy harder.
At the bottom lay the loose crib screw.
Claire held it in her palm until the metal warmed.
Her phone rang.
Richard.
She almost did not answer.
“Hello.”
A pause.
“It’s Richard.”
“I know.”
“Right.”
Another pause.
Neither of them was good at this.
“Oliver wanted to say good night.”
Claire looked at the clock.
It was six twenty-three.
“Isn’t that early?”
“He says it’s been a long day.”
Oliver came on the line.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Did you get home?”
“Yes.”
May you like
“Is it nice?”
Claire looked at the laundry.
