Chương 5
“Her purse was inside.”
“She left it.”
“The note.”
Elise looked away.
Daniel’s stomach turned.
“You wrote the note.”
“No.”
“Did you know about it?”
“After.”
“What did it say?”
“You know what it said.”
“I know what the police told me it said.”
“She wrote that she was sorry for hurting everyone and that she couldn’t keep doing it.”
Daniel felt something cold move through him.
Rachel had written notes like that before.
Not suicide notes exactly.
Apology notes.
After relapses. After treatment. After losing jobs.
I’m sorry for hurting everyone.
I can’t keep doing this.
Words that could mean recovery.
Words that could mean death.
Elise said, “She left it because she wanted you to stop looking.”
“And when the police interpreted it as suicide?”
“I didn’t know what to do.”
“You could have told the truth.”
“I know.”
“When?”
Her voice broke slightly.
“I know.”
“No. When did you know that?”
She stared at him.
“Because six hours into the search, you could have told the truth. Twelve hours. The next morning. Day three. When Noah threw up because he heard a diver say the current might have taken her body out. When Lucy asked me if fish could eat people. Pick a moment.”
Elise’s eyes filled.
She wiped them angrily before any tear fell.
“I was afraid.”
“So was everybody.”
“I thought if I told you, I would lose everything.”
“You mean me.”
“Yes.”
“The house?”
“No.”
“The children?”
“Yes.”
“They’re not yours.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
The question hit her harder than he intended.
She looked toward the library door.
When she spoke again, the sharpness was gone.
“I know exactly that.”
Daniel said nothing.
Elise pressed her palms together between her knees.
“I couldn’t have children.”
He almost interrupted, then stopped.
She had told him this before they married, without ceremony. A surgery at twenty-eight. Complications. No fertility speech, no hidden longing, no request for sympathy. Daniel had never pushed.
“They started calling me when they were scared,” she said. “Not Mom. I never asked for that. But they called me. Noah called when he got suspended. Lucy came into our room when she had nightmares. I knew what cereal they’d eat. I knew which teacher Noah lied to and which one he didn’t. I knew Lucy needed the hall light on but would deny it if you asked. I had a family.”
“You had a place in one.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t own it.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do.”
“No. You know it now.”
Her face crumpled for less than a second before she pulled it back together.
“That may be fair.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
Both of them jumped.
It was Noah.
Daniel answered immediately.
“Hey.”
“Can we come out?”
He looked at Elise.
“Not yet.”
“Lucy has to pee.”
For one absurd second, Daniel nearly laughed.
Life had a talent for humiliating drama.
“Use the bathroom in the library.”
“She says there’s a spider.”
“There is not a spider.”
“There is.”
Behind Noah’s voice, Lucy said, “It’s huge.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“I’ll come get you.”
He ended the call.
Elise gave a small, involuntary sound that might have been a laugh if neither of them had been destroyed.
Daniel looked at her.
She stopped.
He walked to the library.
Noah opened the door before he reached it.
Lucy stood behind him, barefoot now, her cream shirt wrinkled at the hem.
“There’s a spider,” she said.
Daniel entered.
The spider was the size of a nickel.
He trapped it under an empty water glass and slid a coaster beneath it.
Noah watched.
“You’re not killing it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Daniel carried the spider toward the window.
“I don’t know. It’s having a bad enough night.”
Noah almost smiled.
Almost.
Daniel opened the window and shook the spider outside.
Lucy went to the bathroom.
Noah stayed near the bookcase.
“Is Mom alive?”
“Yes.”
“You already said that.”
“I know.”
“Where is she?”
“We have an address.”
“Are we going?”
Daniel leaned against the desk.
“I’m figuring that out.”
“I want to go.”
“I know.”
“Tonight.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
Daniel looked at him.
The phrase had become contagious.
“Noah, I’m not going to put you and Lucy in a car at midnight, drive to a house I’ve never seen, and knock on a door because of one photograph.”
“It’s not midnight.”
“It’s ten forty.”
“That’s not midnight.”
“You are very helpful.”
Noah looked away.
Daniel let a few seconds pass.
“I need to make sure the address is safe. I need to make sure she’s there. And I need to think about what happens if she opens that door.”
Noah’s throat moved.
“What if she doesn’t want us?”
Daniel had no useful answer.
He went to his son and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“She sent the locket.”
“What if she just feels bad?”
“Then we’ll deal with that.”
“What if she’s high?”
Another good question.
Another child asking it.
Daniel sat in the nearest chair.
“We’ll deal with that too.”
Noah frowned.
“You don’t know anything.”
“No.”
The boy seemed surprised.
Daniel had spent years trying to answer every question because fatherhood had frightened him into pretending certainty. Tonight he did not have enough lies left for one more performance.
“I don’t know what condition she’s in,” he said. “I don’t know why she made the choices she made. I don’t know why she didn’t contact me directly. I don’t know what tomorrow looks like. But I know she’s alive, and I know we are not pretending otherwise.”
Noah’s eyes filled again.
He wiped them with the heel of his hand.
“Did she leave because of us?”
“No.”
“You don’t know.”
Daniel inhaled slowly.
“No. I don’t know everything. But I know that.”
“How?”
“Because adults can make terrible choices for reasons that have nothing to do with whether their children are worth staying for.”
May you like
Noah considered that.
Lucy returned from the bathroom and climbed onto the leather sofa without speaking.
