Part 5
They collected the boat in silence.
The hull. The mast. The propeller. The tiny painted rail. A triangular chip from the bow. Pieces too small to identify. Anna placed them in the box one by one, resisting the urge to say they could fix it. Daniel found the little flag under the edge of the runner rug. Caleb took that piece himself and held it in his palm for a long time before adding it.
When they finished, the hallway floor looked clean again.
That was deceptive.
Anna carried the box to the kitchen table while Caleb sat beside her, one hand on the cardboard edge. Rebecca made tea no one wanted. Daniel stood at the sink, staring out the window. Mason remained in the hallway until Daniel told him to sit in the dining room, where they could see him. He obeyed with theatrical misery, dragging a chair loudly enough to make a point and not loudly enough to be challenged.
The first ordinary sound returned when the refrigerator hummed on.
It startled Caleb.
Anna put her hand over his.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He looked at her. “You didn’t break it.”
“No,” she said. “But I told you to keep trying with Mason. Even when he was mean.”
Caleb traced the torn cardboard seam with one finger.
“You said he was sad.”
“He is sad.”
Caleb nodded. “I’m sad and I don’t break things.”
Anna looked toward the dining room, where Mason sat with his head down and his hair covering his eyes.
“You’re right,” she said.
Daniel turned from the sink. “Caleb, Mason will not be allowed to treat you that way again.”
Caleb did not answer.
Anna watched Daniel absorb another refusal of comfort. He was trying, and trying was late. Late mattered. Late had a cost.
Rebecca set mugs on the table. Her hands were not quite steady.
“I should go,” she said, though she clearly did not want to leave Anna alone.
Anna looked at Daniel. Then Mason. Then Caleb.
“No,” she said. “Please stay.”
Rebecca sat immediately, relief softening her face.
Daniel looked as if he might object, then did not. That small silence mattered. Not enough, but enough for the next minute.
They spent the afternoon in fragments. Caleb refused lunch, then ate half a banana. Mason sat in the dining room without his phone, staring at nothing. Daniel made two calls to cancel work meetings and used a voice Anna recognized as falsely calm. Rebecca washed dishes that were already clean. Anna took photographs of the broken boat, not because she knew what she would do with them, but because some instinct told her not to let the event become blurry.
When she lifted her phone, Daniel noticed.
“Why are you taking pictures?”
Anna looked at the box. “Because tomorrow someone might say it was not that bad.”
“I wouldn’t.”
She held his gaze.
He looked away first.
At three, Caleb fell asleep on the couch with his head in Anna’s lap. His eyelashes were still clumped from crying. Anna stroked his hair and watched the hallway from where she sat. The staircase looked ordinary again. That, too, felt offensive.
Rebecca sat in the armchair across from her, shoes tucked under her like they were still twenty-two and sharing an apartment with bad heat.
“You okay?” Rebecca asked.
“No.”
“Good. I mean, not good. Accurate.”
Anna almost smiled.
Daniel stood in the doorway between the living room and dining room. “Mason wants to talk.”
Anna shook her head. “Not to Caleb.”
“To you.”
“I’m not leaving Caleb.”
“He can come in here.”
Rebecca looked at Anna, silently asking whether she should go.
“Stay,” Anna said.
Daniel disappeared and returned with Mason, who had the sullen stiffness of a prisoner being marched to a hearing. He stood near the fireplace and did not look at the couch.
Anna continued stroking Caleb’s hair. “What do you want to say?”
Mason’s eyes flicked toward Rebecca.
“She stays,” Anna said.
His mouth tightened. “Fine.”
Silence stretched until Daniel said, “Mason.”
“I’m sorry,” Mason muttered.
Anna waited.
He shifted his weight. “For breaking it.”
“And?”
His face flushed. “What else do you want?”
“The truth.”
“I told the truth.”
“No,” Anna said. “You gave the smallest piece that made you look least cruel.”
Daniel inhaled sharply, but he did not interrupt.
Mason stared at her with wet, angry eyes. “You want me to say I’m evil?”
“No. I want you to say what happened.”
He looked toward the windows. The afternoon light had begun to fade from bright white to gold.
“He came upstairs,” Mason said. “He had the boat. He wanted to show me the flag or something.”
Caleb stirred but did not wake.
“I told him to leave. He didn’t. He said Grandpa made it. Like I care. He kept talking.” Mason’s voice roughened, whether from anger or shame Anna could not tell. “I took it. He grabbed for it. I held it up. He started yelling. I told him if he wanted it so bad, he could go get it.”
Anna’s hand stilled on Caleb’s hair.
Daniel said, “You threw it?”
Mason’s face crumpled for half a second. “Down the stairs.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Anna had thought he smashed it in the hallway. She had pictured a cruel downward motion, sudden and direct. This was worse in a different way. He had turned the staircase into distance. He had made Caleb watch the object fall.
“It hit the railing,” Mason said. “Then the floor.”
Daniel turned away.
Anna looked at the sleeping child in her lap and imagined the boat tumbling, Caleb running after it, Mason above him, gravity doing what anger had begun.
“Why did you smile?” Anna asked.
Mason looked startled.
“When I came in. You smiled.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
He wiped at his face again. “I don’t know.”
May you like
“Yes, you do.”
He glared. “Because he was crying like a baby, okay? Because he always cries and everyone runs. Because I wanted him to stop acting like everything in this house belongs to him.”
