Chương 6
Tessa bent immediately.
“I know.”
“There was cake.”
“Yes.”
“Do we still get cake?”
Nobody answered.
Lucy frowned.
Ben stood.
“Yes.”
Olivia stared at him.
He ignored her.
“There is an enormous cake out there that has already cost somebody a terrible amount of money.”
Richard muttered, “Nine thousand.”
Everyone looked at him.
Richard rubbed his forehead.
“I don’t know why I said that.”
Father James gave a small helpless laugh.
It was so absurd that Tessa laughed too.
Then she covered her mouth, horrified.
Ben felt something inside the room loosen by half an inch.
Lucy looked pleased.
“Nine thousand cakes?”
“Just one,” Ben said.
“That’s dumb.”
“Yes.”
Olivia made a sound between a sob and a laugh.
For one brief second, Ben saw the woman he had loved.
She had always laughed hardest when things went wrong in small ways. Burned toast, canceled flights, a hotel that gave them a room with two twin beds on their first anniversary trip. She would sit cross-legged on the floor and laugh until she hiccuped.
He hated that memory for surviving.
He looked at her.
“What happened after you brought the phone back?”
Olivia wiped beneath one eye carefully so she would not smear her makeup.
“I don’t remember every minute.”
“Try.”
“She was sleeping.”
“Did you unblock me?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her I had called?”
Olivia said nothing.
Ben looked at Tessa.
“Did she?”
Tessa shook her head.
“Mrs. Hale kept asking.”
“And what did Olivia say?”
Tessa hesitated.
Ben could see she did not want to say it in front of Olivia.
That made him want the truth more.
“Tessa.”
“She said you were done fighting.”
Ben stared at the floor.
The sentence was vague enough to be believed.
That was probably why Olivia chose it.
Margaret, exhausted and medicated, could turn it into whatever she feared.
Ben could hear his mother asking, Done with me?
He pressed his fingertips to his eyes.
Father James said quietly, “Ben.”
“I’m all right.”
“No one asked you to be.”
That nearly undid him.
He lowered his hands.
Olivia had begun crying silently.
“I was scared,” she said.
Ben looked at her.
“I know that’s not an excuse. I know. But I thought if she told you about the pledge then, when everything between us was already horrible, you would leave me.”
“You were right.”
She recoiled.
Ben regretted the cruelty of it immediately.
Not the truth.
The delivery.
He looked away.
“I shouldn’t have said that like that.”
Olivia laughed bitterly.
“Very gracious.”
“I’m not trying to be gracious.”
“Then what are you trying to be?”
Ben looked at Lucy.
The child had found a peppermint in a dish and was attempting to unwrap it with both hands.
“Accurate.”
Olivia wiped her cheek.
“You think accuracy is going to save you from feeling anything.”
Ben did not answer because that was also true.
Richard sat down heavily near the wall.
For the first time, he looked old.
“What about the star?” Ben asked.
Tessa reached into her apron pocket.
“I have something else.”
Olivia froze.
Ben saw it.
Tessa took out a clear plastic envelope, the inexpensive kind used for jewelry.
Inside was a strip of paper folded several times.
“What is that?”
“A note.”
Ben did not move.
“From my mother?”
Tessa nodded.
Olivia whispered, “I never saw that.”
Tessa looked at her.
“I know.”
The fear in Olivia’s face shifted.
Ben held out his hand.
Tessa did not give it to him.
“Mrs. Hale wrote it after you took the phone.”
He looked at the envelope.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never read it?”
“She sealed it.”
Ben noticed there was no seal now.
The paper had been opened.
Tessa saw his expression.
“I opened it after she died.”
“Why?”
Her mouth tightened.
“Because I was scared there was something in it that could get me in trouble.”
Ben nodded slowly.
That, too, felt human.
Not saintly.
Not clean.
“What did it say?”
Tessa’s eyes dropped.
“She wanted you to know she hadn’t stopped asking for you.”
Ben’s throat closed.
He looked away.
“Anything else?”
“She said she was sorry for the last argument.”
Olivia turned her face toward the window.
“And?”
Tessa hesitated.
“She said the silver star was yours.”
Ben reached into his pocket.
His fingers closed around it.
Tessa said, “She told me to give you the note and the charm together.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Tessa’s face changed.
This was the question she had feared.
“After she died, Olivia came to the apartment.”
Ben looked at his bride.
Olivia whispered, “To help.”
Tessa continued.
“She was going through drawers. Papers. Jewelry.”
“She was helping with the estate.”
“Before the executor arrived?”
Olivia’s eyes flashed.
“I had been asked to organize personal items.”
“By who?”
No answer.
Tessa said, “She saw me holding the envelope.”
Ben felt cold again.
“What happened?”
“She asked what it was.”
“And?”
“I lied.”
“What did you say?”
“That Mrs. Hale had written down instructions about the laundry service.”
Ben stared at her.
Tessa gave a tiny, embarrassed shrug.
“It was the first thing I thought of.”
Against every reasonable emotion in the room, Father James smiled.
Margaret would have enjoyed that.
Ben almost heard her voice: If one is going to lie, Benjamin, at least respect the craft.
“What did Olivia do?”
“She didn’t believe me.”
Olivia whispered, “I thought she’d taken jewelry.”
Tessa looked at her.
“You told me if anything was missing you would call the police.”
“I had just lost Margaret.”
“No,” Ben said.
Olivia turned to him.
“You had just lost the woman whose phone you stole.”
Her face went blank.
Ben wished he could take the sentence back.
Not because it was false.
Because every truthful thing did not need to become a weapon.
He was beginning to understand how easily that happened in families.
Margaret had done it.
Olivia did it.
May you like
He had done it.
Tessa handed him the plastic envelope.
