Chương 6
“You refused to wear pants for four days.”
“I like dresses.”
“It was February.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It mattered to the school.”
Mia’s mouth moved slightly.
Then she leaned against him.
Ethan stayed awake after she slept.
At nine the next morning, he called a child therapist recommended by Mia’s pediatrician.
The earliest regular appointment was three weeks away.
He said that was fine.
He did not ask for a miracle.
The next several days were less dramatic than Christmas and harder in different ways.
The legal process moved slowly.
The internet moved quickly.
Margaret remained in the old house. Derek remained with her. Ethan’s movers were rescheduled, then canceled. Marisol sent documents. Margaret retained her own attorney, who sent documents back.
At work, two clients postponed meetings.
One terminated a contract.
Ethan’s partner told him they would survive.
Ethan believed him some mornings.
Other mornings he stared at the firm’s cash-flow spreadsheet before sunrise and wondered how much one thirty-four-second video could cost.
Mia went back to school after winter break.
On the first day she came home angry because another child had asked whether her dad hated grandmothers.
Ethan emailed the teacher.
Then deleted the email because it was too angry.
He wrote another.
The teacher called that evening. She was kind without being dramatic. She said children repeated things they heard. She would handle it.
Ethan thanked her.
After the call, he sat at the kitchen table while Mia did math homework.
“Do you hate grandmothers?” she asked.
“No.”
“Just Grandma?”
“I don’t know if hate is the word.”
“What’s the word?”
Ethan thought about it.
“Done.”
Mia nodded as though this made perfect sense.
A week later, Nora came to the office.
Ethan was working late. Most of the staff had gone home.
She carried two coffees.
He looked at the cup she placed on his desk.
“You remembered.”
“You drink the same boring thing you drank in college.”
He took a sip.
Black, no sugar.
“Why are you here?”
Nora sat.
“Mom called me.”
“Congratulations.”
“She wants me to tell you she’ll leave the house if you guarantee she gets Mia every other weekend.”
Ethan stared at her.
“She what?”
“I told her no.”
“She thinks my child is a lease condition?”
“I told her that too.”
He stood and walked to the window.
Cars moved along the road below.
Nora waited.
Finally Ethan said, “Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“What she was saying to Mia.”
“No.”
“Anything?”
Nora did not answer immediately.
That made him turn around.
“She said things about Claire,” Nora said.
“When?”
“Before Claire died. After. You know Mom.”
“No. Stop saying that.”
Nora flinched.
“You know Mom is not an answer.”
“Okay.”
“What did she say?”
Nora looked down at her coffee.
“She thought Claire used the illness to keep you away from the family.”
Ethan laughed once, without humor.
“She was dying.”
“I know.”
“She was getting chemotherapy.”
“I know.”
“She lost thirty pounds.”
“I know, Ethan.”
“What exactly did Mom think was the long con?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Nora’s jaw tightened.
“She thought Claire liked having your attention.”
The room felt suddenly too small.
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“What did you say?”
“Usually nothing.”
Ethan looked at her.
“That’s what I did too.”
Nora’s eyes filled but she blinked the tears away.
“I know.”
For a while neither spoke.
Then Nora said, “There’s something else.”
Ethan waited.
“Christmas wasn’t random.”
He frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Mom has been furious about moving. Derek’s been feeding it.”
“That isn’t news.”
“No. I mean the doll.”
Nora looked uncomfortable.
“About two weeks before Christmas, Mom asked me what Mia was always carrying. I told her Claire made it.”
Ethan’s fingers tightened around the coffee cup.
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Of course she did.’”
“That’s it?”
“No.”
Nora looked at him.
“She said Claire would find a way to stay in that house even from the grave.”
Ethan did not speak.
“I told her it was a creepy thing to say,” Nora continued. “She laughed. I didn’t think—”
“You didn’t think she would burn it.”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
That was the beginning of a different kind of anger.
Not the hot anger that had sent the ancestral portrait into the fire.
This anger was slower.
It came with inventory.
Thanksgiving.
The sleepover Mia canceled.
The comments after Claire’s diagnosis.
Margaret’s complaints every time Ethan missed a family dinner because Claire was sick.
Derek’s jokes.
Nora’s silence.
His own.
For fourteen months Ethan had told himself Mia needed family around her because she had already lost too much.
He had never seriously asked whether all family was good simply because it remained alive.
Two days later, Margaret requested mediation.
Her attorney framed it as an attempt to resolve the housing dispute without prolonged litigation.
Marisol recommended Ethan attend.
“Why?”
“Because courts generally appreciate people who attempt reasonable resolution before spending everyone’s money.”
“She wants Mia.”
“She is not getting Mia through a housing mediation.”
“She’s linking them.”
“Then we make clear they are separate.”
Ethan rubbed his forehead.
“I don’t want to sit in a room with her.”
“That is not a legal argument.”
“I know.”
“It is, however, a human one.”
He looked at Marisol across her conference table.
She closed the file.
“Can I say something that isn’t legal advice?”
“Apparently everyone else does.”
“Your mother may believe this is still a negotiation because your history with her has taught her that enough pressure changes your answer.”
Ethan looked at the table.
Marisol continued.
“If the answer has changed, she will not believe you the first time.”
The mediation took place on a gray Thursday morning in a neutral office building fifteen minutes from the Cole house.
May you like
Margaret arrived wearing a navy coat, pearl earrings and the expression of someone entering a restaurant where she expected poor service.
Derek came with her even though he was not a party to the housing agreement.
