Chương 5
Claire closed the blinds.
The foundation’s first board meeting had been scheduled for the following afternoon at a children’s rehabilitation hospital in Richmond. The board included Mara, Jonah, a pediatric emergency physician named Priya Desai, a retired school transportation director, and Claire. Their first vote would approve grants for car-seat replacement programs in five rural counties.
Mara suggested postponing.
“No,” Claire said.
“Media may come.”
“They were invited to the announcement.”
“That was before.”
“It was before my father gave them a better story.”
“Claire.”
“If we cancel, he becomes the story.”
Jonah looked at Mara, then at Claire. “She’s right.”
Mara closed her folder. “Being right does not make tomorrow easier.”
Claire almost told her that nothing had been easy since a surgeon sat beside her and removed his glasses. Instead, she asked Jonah whether he had eaten the chocolate muffin.
He had not.
She wrapped it in a paper towel and put it in the freezer.
That evening, her mother called again.
Claire answered.
For several seconds neither woman spoke.
Then Diane said, “Your father didn’t know the reporter would take a picture.”
Claire sat on the living room floor, sorting mail into piles she would later combine again.
“He described the confrontation before he arrived.”
“That lawyer did.”
“On Dad’s instructions.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Mom.”
Diane’s breathing sounded damp and shallow. “He’s frightened.”
“You said that last night.”
“He could lose the business.”
Claire stopped sorting.
“What happened to the business?”
“It’s been difficult.”
“How difficult?”
“Since the pandemic, then the warehouse lease, and one of the contracts—Claire, I don’t understand all of it.”
“Does Dad owe money?”
“Every business owes money.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire could hear a television in the background. Her father coughed somewhere near her mother but did not speak.
“Are you on speaker?” Claire asked.
“No.”
The answer came too fast.
“Take me off speaker.”
A pause followed. Then the television became quieter.
“Done,” Diane said.
Claire did not believe her.
“Did Dad lend Ethan three hundred thousand dollars?”
“He helped him.”
“With twelve thousand.”
“He did more than that.”
“What?”
“Advice. Contacts. Your father believed in Ethan when no one else did.”
“Caleb believed in him. I believed in him.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t.”
Diane sighed, and Claire saw her mother at the kitchen counter of the house where Claire had grown up, pinching the bridge of her nose whenever a conversation threatened the shape of the family.
“Your father thinks the foundation is too much,” she said. “He thinks you should keep some aside for people who are still here.”
“People?”
“Family.”
“He means himself.”
“He means all of us.”
“Melissa too?”
Diane did not answer.
Claire set the mail down.
“What does Melissa need?”
“She’s had expenses.”
“What expenses?”
“You know the divorce was hard.”
“The divorce was three years ago.”
“She still has the townhouse.”
Claire pressed her fingers to her forehead. Melissa’s townhouse had been purchased with a loan their father arranged through his business. At the time, he had called it smart tax planning.
“Is the townhouse tied to Dad’s company?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because your father handles those things.”
“Then put him on.”
“No.”
The refusal surprised both of them.
In the silence that followed, Claire heard a door close on her mother’s end.
Diane’s voice dropped. “He used the company line of credit for Melissa’s house. I found a letter in November. The bank can take it.”
“Does Melissa know?”
“I think so.”
“And Dad expects me to save both properties.”
“He expects you not to let us lose everything while you give millions to strangers.”
The sentence came out harder than Diane probably intended.
Claire looked toward the photographs.
“Those strangers have children who are alive.”
Her mother made a small sound.
Claire regretted the words immediately, not because they were false but because of how she had used them.
Diane whispered, “Do you think I don’t miss them?”
“I don’t know what you miss.”
“That’s cruel.”
“Yes.”
Claire waited for the apology that had controlled her since childhood. It rose to her lips and stayed there.
Diane said, “We came to the hospital.”
“After midnight.”
“We came.”
“After Lily died.”
Her mother began to cry, quietly at first.
Claire closed her eyes. This was the point where she usually became the comforter. She would say there had been confusion, that nobody had known how bad it was, that grief made people strange.
Instead, she asked, “Why didn’t you come to the funeral?”
“We thought you didn’t want us.”
“Who told you that?”
“Your father said you told Mara we would be removed.”
“I removed him from speaking at the service after he asked whether Ethan’s business shares would pass through probate.”
“He was trying to help.”
“At the hospital?”
Diane did not answer.
“At the funeral home?” Claire continued. “Before I had picked caskets?”
“He handles fear badly.”
“So do I.”
The words left Claire exhausted.
Her mother sniffed. “I wrote you a letter.”
“I didn’t get one.”
“I didn’t send it.”
“Then you wrote it for yourself.”
The call ended ten minutes later without resolution. Diane asked Claire to meet privately. Claire said she would consider it. Neither said love you.
Afterward, Claire sat in the dark until the porch light switched on automatically.
A message arrived from Melissa.
I didn’t know about the reporter.
Claire typed, Did you know about the money?
Three dots appeared, disappeared, then returned.
Some.
Claire waited.
Melissa sent another message.
Dad said Ethan owed him. I believed him.
Claire typed, Do you still?
No answer came.
May you like
The next morning, Claire drove to Richmond with Mara. Jonah followed in his own car because he disliked being a passenger on Interstate 95.
The hospital conference room overlooked a parking garage and a row of leafless trees. Staff members moved chairs, tested microphones, and arranged informational folders bearing the foundation’s name. Claire had approved the logo weeks earlier: two simple lines forming the outline of a child’s car seat, with Lily and Noah’s initials hidden inside the shape.
