Chương 6
In June, Vanessa had posted photographs from Cabo.
Margaret had thought, They’re doing well.
Now she understood that adult children could lie with vacations as easily as teenagers lied with breath mints.
“Where is Vanessa?”
“At a hotel.”
“Which one?”
“Why?”
“I’m curious whether you’re still together.”
Ryan looked tired again.
“I don’t know.”
Margaret softened.
Against her will.
It angered her, the automatic tenderness.
He was still the boy who once climbed into her bed during a thunderstorm carrying his own pillow because he did not want anyone to think he intended to stay.
He was also the man who had pulled a chair away from her.
Both things were true.
“Emily will text you when you can get your clothes.”
Ryan stepped closer to the storm door.
“Mom.”
She waited.
“I need you to tell the police I didn’t know.”
“No.”
His face changed.
“You just heard me.”
“I heard what you told me.”
“It’s true.”
“Then tell them.”
“They’re not going to believe me if you’re in there acting like I planned some crime.”
Margaret felt her sympathy disappear.
“I will not lie for you.”
“I’m not asking you to lie.”
“You are asking me to certify something I do not know.”
“You know me.”
“I thought I did.”
Ryan flinched.
Margaret regretted it.
Again.
She was beginning to understand that protecting herself did not automatically make every sharp sentence honorable.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He looked surprised.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
For a moment they were simply mother and son.
Then he said, “So you’ll call them?”
Margaret almost laughed.
“No.”
The moment disappeared.
Ryan shook his head.
“Unbelievable.”
He walked back to his SUV.
Margaret watched him leave.
When she closed the door, Emily was standing halfway down the staircase in sweatpants with a towel wrapped around her hair.
“How long were you there?”
“Long enough.”
Margaret sighed.
“You should’ve said something.”
“I wanted to hear what he said when he thought it was just you.”
Margaret looked at her daughter.
“That is alarmingly sensible.”
Emily came down.
“Did you believe him?”
“Parts.”
“Which parts?”
“That he’s in trouble.”
“You knew that.”
“No. I knew he had done something wrong. That’s not the same as knowing he’s in trouble.”
Emily sat on the bottom stair.
Margaret sat beside her.
For years that staircase had been where they tied shoes, waited for taxis, opened packages, argued about curfews, and once, after Frank’s funeral, sat without speaking while thirty people ate sandwiches in the next room.
Emily pulled the towel off her hair.
“Do you regret calling the police?”
Margaret considered lying.
“Yes.”
Emily turned toward her.
“I also don’t.”
“That sounds miserable.”
“It is.”
The detective called that afternoon.
His name was Daniel Mercer. He spoke in the careful, slightly tired voice of someone accustomed to people wanting certainty he could not give them.
He asked whether Ryan had contacted Margaret.
Margaret told him he had.
“What did he say?”
She repeated the conversation as accurately as she could.
Mercer asked her not to delete messages, voicemails, emails, or anything related to the property.
“He says Vanessa handled the document,” Margaret said.
“That’s something we’ll discuss with him.”
“Do you believe him?”
A pause.
“I don’t make credibility calls for families over the phone.”
Margaret almost smiled.
“I suppose that was a stupid question.”
“Not stupid. Just one I’m not going to answer.”
She liked him a little more after that.
“Is someone going to arrest them?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Because you don’t know?”
“Correct.”
The honesty was irritating but useful.
Margaret looked through the kitchen window.
Frank’s bird feeder was empty.
She had forgotten to fill it.
“What happens now?”
“We keep working.”
“That sounds intentionally vague.”
“It is intentionally accurate.”
After the call, Margaret carried a bag of sunflower seed into the backyard and filled the feeder.
The air was cold enough to sting her fingers.
A chickadee appeared on the fence almost immediately.
Frank would have said it was spying on her.
He used to assign motives to birds.
Cardinals were vain.
Blue jays were union organizers.
Sparrows were petty criminals.
Margaret stood in the yard longer than necessary.
When she came inside, Emily was at the dining table with the trust papers spread in front of her.
“You really should have told me,” she said.
“I know.”
“Your attorney emailed me.”
Margaret stopped.
“What?”
“He wants to schedule a meeting.”
“That was fast.”
“Apparently you gave him permission.”
“I did.”
“You remember doing that?”
Margaret gave her a look.
Emily smiled faintly.
“Too soon?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
Margaret sat across from her.
Emily tapped the document.
“I don’t want Ryan to think I stole this from him.”
“You didn’t.”
“He already thinks that.”
“He thinks many things.”
“I care what he thinks.”
Margaret looked at her daughter.
Emily’s eyes stayed on the paper.
There it was again, the family habit of pretending indifference until somebody had the courage to call it by its real name.
“You love him.”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
Emily looked up.
“That’s going to make this harder.”
“Yes.”
Two days later, Ryan was interviewed by police.
Margaret learned because he called her afterward from the parking lot of the station.
She almost did not answer.
Then she did.
“Mom.”
His voice sounded thin.
“What happened?”
“They think I did it.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“What did you tell them?”
“The truth.”
“Which truth?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I’m asking.”
“I told them Vanessa prepared the paperwork. I told them I never copied your signature. I told them I thought she was handling something Dad wanted done.”
“Your father couldn’t have wanted something done after he died.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t.”
Ryan made a frustrated sound.
“Can I come over?”
“No.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“We are talking.”
“Not like this.”
Margaret looked toward the front window.
Emily had returned to Chicago that morning.
The house felt large again.
May you like
Too large.
“Ryan, I’m not comfortable being alone with you right now.”
