Chương 11
“Why didn’t you answer?”
“It was his phone.”
“You had mine.”
“I called you once.”
Claire remembered. Melissa’s call had come while a social worker was asking whether anyone could drive Claire home. Claire had looked at the screen and silenced it.
“You didn’t leave a message,” Claire said.
“I didn’t know what to say.”
“You could have come.”
“I asked Dad if we should. He said if it was serious, the hospital would have called him.”
“The hospital didn’t know him.”
“I know.”
“When did you learn?”
“Mom saw a message from you around ten.”
By ten, Ethan had died. Lily was still in surgery.
“What did Dad do?”
“He told everyone there had been an accident. Then he said we should wait because driving after drinking would make things worse.”
That part was reasonable. Several people at the party had been drinking.
“Mom hadn’t had anything,” Claire said.
Melissa looked down.
“Did he stop her from leaving?”
“He said she was too upset to drive.”
“And you?”
“I had been drinking.”
Claire nodded.
“They came after midnight,” she said.
“I know.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Melissa’s shoulders rose and fell. “Dad said somebody should stay with Avery. Tom was drunk. His parents had left.”
There it was: a plausible reason, wrapped around avoidance.
“You could have come the next morning.”
“I was ashamed.”
“Then you sent the message nine days later.”
Melissa wiped beneath one eye with the side of her finger.
“At the funeral home, Dad called me from the parking lot,” she said. “He said you had told security not to let me in.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“What did he actually say?”
“That you were blaming me. That you had told people we chose cake over your children.”
“I told Mara.”
“He heard her repeat it.”
“So he lied to you.”
“Yes.”
“And you sent the message.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Melissa’s face twisted, not into tears but irritation with herself. “Because I needed you to be cruel first.”
Claire felt the sentence in her chest.
Melissa continued. “If you had barred me, then I could be angry. If you hadn’t, then I was just the person who didn’t come.”
Mara appeared in the kitchen doorway but stayed silent.
Claire asked, “Did Dad write the message?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you what to say?”
“No.”
“Did he agree with it?”
“He said not to send anything while emotional.”
Claire almost laughed. Their father had protected himself even then.
“Why did he say he didn’t send it?” she asked.
“Because technically he didn’t.”
Melissa looked toward Mara.
“I’ll give you the computer,” she said. “The one with the altered file.”
“Where is it?”
“In my car.”
“You stole Dad’s computer?”
“It belongs to the company. My name is still on the registration paperwork.”
“That may not make taking it legal,” Mara said.
“I didn’t break in. I had a key.”
Claire and Mara exchanged a glance.
Melissa noticed. “Fine. Apparently keys don’t mean anything in this family.”
Despite herself, Claire smiled.
It vanished quickly, but Melissa had seen it.
For one second they were twelve and eight, trying not to laugh while their father lectured them about leaving bicycles in the driveway.
Then the moment passed.
Mara took custody of the laptop without opening it and called a forensic technician. Melissa wrote down where she had found it, when she removed it, and who had access. She became impatient with the questions.
“If the file proves he changed it, why does any of this matter?”
“Because proof must survive people who want it not to be proof,” Mara said.
Melissa looked at Claire. “Is that what the foundation is going to be? Lawyers and rules?”
“Mostly grants and car seats.”
“That sounds easier.”
“It isn’t.”
Melissa stayed that night in the guest room.
Claire had not prepared the room for anyone since the accident. Lily’s extra blanket was folded in the closet. Noah’s night-light remained plugged into the wall, projecting faint blue stars across the ceiling when Melissa switched on the lamp.
“I can sleep somewhere else,” Melissa said.
“There isn’t somewhere else.”
“The couch.”
“Mara is on the couch.”
From downstairs, Mara called, “I heard that.”
Melissa looked around the room. “Did they sleep here?”
“When Mom and Dad visited.”
The last visit had been six weeks before the accident. Robert had complained that the mattress was too soft. Diane had quietly stripped the bed the next morning.
Melissa touched one of the blue stars on the wall.
“Avery still asks about them,” she said.
Claire stood in the doorway.
“What do you tell her?”
“That they died.”
“About me.”
Melissa’s hand dropped.
“I tell her you’re sad.”
“That’s all?”
“I don’t know what I’m allowed to say.”
“You could tell her I love her.”
“Do you?”
Claire resented the question because it required an answer larger than the moment.
“Yes.”
Melissa nodded.
She slept with the night-light on.
At three in the morning, Claire found Mara awake at the kitchen table, reading forensic instructions on her laptop.
“You should sleep,” Claire said.
“So should you.”
Claire opened the freezer and saw the chocolate muffin wrapped in paper towel. She took it out and set it on the counter.
“Is that evidence?” Mara asked.
“No.”
“Good. I’m hungry.”
They split it with a butter knife.
The center was still frozen.
Claire ate around the hard part.
“Do you think my mother will leave him?” she asked.
Mara brushed crumbs from her sleeve. “I don’t know your mother.”
“You’ve met her.”
“I’ve met the version of her that appears when Robert is in the room.”
Claire considered that.
“What happens to him if we prove forgery?”
“That depends on what he does next and whether the document was filed or used to obtain something.”
“He used it with the press.”
“That creates exposure, but not the kind you’re imagining.”
“I’m not imagining prison.”
May you like
“What are you imagining?”
Claire stared at the frozen piece of muffin between them.
