Chương 2
Ethan turned back.
His mother’s smile was gone.
Derek had put his drink on the mantel.
The five adults who had laughed now stood among red-and-gold presents with expressions that ranged from shame to irritation to disbelief.
Ethan looked at all of them before returning his eyes to Margaret.
“Enjoy your last Christmas here,” he said. “Your real gift arrives at dawn—the eviction team.”
Then he walked outside with Mia.
The door closed behind them.
For the first thirty yards, neither of them spoke.
Snow pressed under Ethan’s boots. Mia’s Santa hat had slipped sideways, and he wanted to straighten it, but she held the scorched doll against her chest with both arms and he did not want to make her release it.
His truck sat at the end of the circular driveway beside a row of expensive cars belonging to people still inside the house.
Halfway there, Mia stopped.
Ethan stopped too.
She stared down at the doll.
“Is she gone now?”
He knew who she meant.
Claire had been dead fourteen months.
There were days when Ethan could say the word dead without feeling anything physical. There were other days when it caught under his ribs like a hand.
He crouched in the snow.
“What do you mean?”
“More gone.”
He looked at the burned cloth.
“No.”
Mia rubbed the doll’s remaining hair with her thumb.
“Grandma said it was stupid to keep old things.”
Ethan felt something inside him shift in a way that had nothing to do with anger.
“When did she say that?”
Mia shrugged.
“That wasn’t the first time, was it?”
Another shrug.
He waited.
Snow landed in Mia’s hair and melted against her forehead.
“She said Mom made you weak.”
Ethan closed his eyes briefly.
The front door behind them stayed shut.
“When?”
“At Thanksgiving.”
He remembered Thanksgiving. Margaret had taken Mia into the pantry to choose a serving tray. They had been alone for perhaps four minutes.
“What else?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mia.”
“I don’t want you to be mad.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“But you get the face.”
“What face?”
She pressed her lips together and pulled her eyebrows down in an exaggerated imitation of him.
Despite everything, Ethan almost laughed.
“Okay,” he said. “That face.”
“You got it when Uncle Derek said I dress like Mom.”
Ethan looked back at the house.
All those times Mia had gone quiet after visits. All the headaches. The requests to stay close to him. The sudden refusal to sleep over at Margaret’s house, which was ridiculous in retrospect because this was not Margaret’s house, not technically. It had not been hers for years.
He had explained each change separately.
Seven-year-olds changed their minds. Grief made children clingy. Holidays were difficult.
He had explanations for everything because explanations demanded less of him than conclusions.
Mia shivered.
Ethan stood.
“Come on.”
Inside the truck, he turned the heat up high. Mia sat in the passenger seat with the doll across her lap.
He fastened her seat belt because her hands would not leave it.
Before starting the engine, he looked back toward the house.
Through the front windows he could see movement. Derek crossed the living room quickly. Someone passed behind him. Margaret appeared for a moment and vanished again.
Mia looked at Ethan.
“Are they really getting kicked out tomorrow?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
The phrase eviction team already sounded worse in the quieter air of the truck.
“They’re supposed to move out tomorrow.”
“Because of the doll?”
“No.”
That was true, although the answer required more explanation than he wanted to give a child on Christmas night.
Three months earlier Margaret had signed an agreement to leave the house on December twenty-sixth. Ethan had paid the deposit and first year of association fees on a two-bedroom condominium six miles away. He had also paid for professional movers and storage for anything she did not want to take immediately.
She had asked for one final Christmas in the old house.
Ethan had agreed.
Claire would not have.
The thought arrived without warning.
He started the truck.
Mia leaned her head against the window.
“Are you mad at Grandma?”
“Yes.”
“Forever?”
“I don’t know.”
She considered this.
“Are you mad at Uncle Derek forever?”
“Closer.”
That earned the smallest sound from her, almost a laugh but not quite.
He drove home through falling snow.
The house Ethan and Mia lived in was twelve minutes away and half the size of the Cole house. Claire had picked it because the kitchen window faced west and because there was a maple tree in the backyard that she said looked climbable.
Neither of them had ever climbed it.
When Ethan pulled into the garage, Mia was asleep.
The burned doll remained locked in her arms.
He carried both of them inside.
At eleven forty-three that night, after Mia was asleep in his bed because she had not wanted to be alone, Ethan stood at the kitchen sink eating cold stuffing directly from a plastic container.
He had not eaten dinner.
His phone vibrated repeatedly on the counter.
He ignored it until the fifth call.
His older sister Nora’s name appeared on the screen.
Nora had been one of the five adults in the living room. She had not laughed at first. Ethan remembered that now. She had stared at Margaret, then looked at Derek, then given a short uncomfortable laugh after everyone else had started.
It did not make Ethan feel better.
He answered.
“What?”
Nora exhaled.
“Mom called the police.”
Ethan set the fork down.
“For what?”
“She says you destroyed family property and threatened to have her physically removed from her home.”
“It’s my house.”
“I know.”
“She knows.”
“I know.”
Ethan leaned against the counter.
“Did the police come?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
May you like
“They told her it sounded civil unless she wanted to report the portrait, and then Derek explained the portrait wasn’t insured and nobody knows who actually owns it.”
“Grandpa gave it to Dad.”
