Chương 2
Richard rubbed his cheek where Margaret had struck him. The gesture seemed to remind him that the room existed.
He looked at Margaret.
“What do you want?”
It was such a Richard question that for a moment she almost admired its consistency.
Not What happened?
Not How did you find this?
Not Why are you angry?
What do you want?
“Right now?” Margaret said. “I want you to explain why the credit card of a woman whose funeral I attended twelve years ago paid for your lobster.”
Claire looked at Margaret sharply.
“You knew her?”
Margaret finally met Claire’s eyes.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She was my sister.”
The silence that followed felt different from the first one.
Claire looked from Margaret to Richard.
Richard looked at the table.
Margaret had known Evelyn Mercer for forty-three years before Richard ever met her.
They had been eleven months apart in age, which Margaret’s mother used to describe as “an administrative error.” Evelyn had been the prettier one in childhood photographs and the messier one in adulthood. She lost keys, overwatered plants, laughed with food in her mouth, and once returned a rental car to the wrong airport.
Margaret was the one who remembered birthdays, carried aspirin, booked appointments, corrected paperwork, and kept her shoes polished.
Evelyn had called her Magpie because Margaret collected facts.
Margaret had hated it.
Then Evelyn died.
After that, no one called her Magpie again.
Richard pushed back his chair.
Margaret said, “Sit down.”
He stared at her.
“Margaret.”
“Sit.”
For a moment she thought he might walk away.
Instead he lowered himself back into the chair.
Claire remained still.
“What happened to her?” Claire asked.
Richard looked at Margaret.
Margaret answered.
“Car accident.”
“Where?”
“Connecticut.”
“When?”
“Twelve years ago next month.”
Claire looked at Richard.
“You told me your first serious relationship ended because she moved overseas.”
Richard closed his eyes again.
Claire’s mouth tightened.
“You used that story on our second date.”
“I was trying to—”
“To what?”
He did not finish.
Margaret felt the old, familiar disgust rise in her.
Richard had always believed unfinished sentences made him seem conflicted rather than dishonest.
“Did you kill her?” Claire asked.
Richard’s head snapped up.
Margaret’s stomach turned.
Claire seemed surprised by her own question, but she did not take it back.
“No,” Richard said.
Too loud.
Several people turned.
“No,” he repeated, quieter. “Jesus, Claire. No.”
“Then why are you terrified?”
“I’m not terrified.”
Margaret looked at his hands.
Claire followed her gaze.
Richard’s right thumb was digging into the side of his index finger hard enough to blanch the skin.
Claire said, “You are.”
He released his hand.
A server appeared beside Margaret, a young woman named Hannah whom Margaret had trained three years earlier.
“Ms. Vale?”
Margaret turned.
Hannah held a small black leather check presenter against her chest.
“There’s another issue.”
Richard said, “Not now.”
Margaret looked at him.
Hannah looked at Margaret, not Richard.
“What issue?”
“The replacement card he gave me.”
Hannah hesitated.
“What about it?”
“It’s also in Evelyn Mercer’s name.”
Claire sat back.
Richard went completely still.
Margaret held out her hand.
Hannah gave her the check presenter.
Inside was a second card.
Black.
Metal.
The name EVELYN J. MERCER was engraved across the front.
Margaret touched it.
The card was cold.
“How did you get this?” she asked Richard.
He did not answer.
“Where did you get this?”
“It’s complicated.”
Margaret almost struck him again.
Instead she closed the leather folder.
“Everything is complicated when you’ve been lying long enough.”
Claire reached for her purse.
Richard turned.
“Claire.”
She stood.
He stood too.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Leave like this.”
A strange little smile appeared on her face.
“Is there a better way to leave after finding out my husband had a dead wife?”
“We can talk.”
“You’ve had five years to talk.”
“Claire.”
She picked up the receipt.
Richard reached for it.
She pulled it away.
“No.”
His hand remained between them.
Claire looked at it.
He lowered it.
Then she turned to Margaret.
“I’m keeping this.”
Margaret nodded.
Richard said, “You can’t.”
Claire looked at him.
“Why?”
He hesitated.
Margaret saw it.
So did Claire.
“Why?” Claire repeated.
Richard looked toward the windows.
Rain had thickened against the glass, smearing the city into abstraction.
“Because it isn’t what you think.”
Claire’s laugh was short and exhausted.
“I don’t know what I think. That’s the problem.”
She walked away.
Richard watched her go.
Margaret did too.
Claire crossed the restaurant without hurrying. At the host stand she stopped, perhaps because she had forgotten where the elevator was. A hostess pointed toward the corridor.
Claire nodded.
Then disappeared.
Richard sat down again.
For a moment he seemed older than fifty-one.
Margaret opened the check presenter and looked at Evelyn’s card.
“Tell me.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“You don’t want to know.”
“That stopped being your decision when my dead sister bought dinner.”
“She didn’t buy dinner.”
“Then who did?”
Richard looked at Margaret.
His eyes were wet, though whether from fear, humiliation, or something else, she could not tell.
“She did.”
Margaret stared at him.
“What?”
“She bought dinner.”
Margaret did not understand the words.
Richard’s voice dropped.
“Evelyn is alive.”
The restaurant seemed to tilt beneath Margaret’s shoes.
She gripped the table.
Richard stood.
She barely noticed.
Her mind offered immediate refusals.
The casket.
The flowers.
Her mother’s hands shaking around a tissue.
The smell of wet wool at the cemetery.
The priest mispronouncing Evelyn’s middle name.
Richard standing beside Margaret beneath a black umbrella.
All of it existed.
All of it had happened.
She looked at him.
“No.”
“Margaret.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
The words entered her as noise.
She picked up the water glass and threw it at him.
Richard ducked.
The glass struck the wall behind him and shattered.
This time the restaurant reacted.
Someone gasped.
A chair scraped hard against the floor.
Hannah appeared from nowhere.
May you like
Margaret heard her own breathing.
Richard straightened slowly.
