Chương 14
Marcus said nothing.
“I deleted it,” she continued. “Years ago. I got tired of hearing her voice.”
Her mouth twisted, not quite crying.
“Now strangers are going to put her in the ground again.”
“This time under her name.”
“That doesn’t give me back the message.”
“No.”
She accepted payment for the funeral home but refused the family plot Marcus offered. Nora would be buried beside her father.
Grace agreed to let Emma visit on the fourth day.
The meeting happened in a private hospital room with a child therapist nearby. Karen went in first. Emma followed carrying the bear. Lily waited in the hall with Marcus.
Through the narrow glass panel, Marcus saw Grace sit up.
Seven years had changed her face.
Her hair was shorter and threaded with gray at the temples. A bruise darkened one cheek. She was thinner. The left side of her mouth did not rise evenly when she smiled, perhaps from the concussion, perhaps from an older injury.
Emma stopped inside the doorway.
Grace opened her arms.
The child crossed the room at a run.
Marcus looked away.
Lily pressed her face to the glass.
“She looks like the picture.”
“Yes.”
“Older.”
“Yes.”
“Is she my mom?”
“Yes.”
“Does she want me?”
Marcus felt the question like a blade slipped carefully between ribs.
“She kept your photograph for seven years.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He looked down at her.
“I believe she does.”
“You don’t know.”
“No.”
Lily watched Grace hold Emma.
After several minutes, Karen came to the door.
“She wants Lily.”
Marcus’s daughter froze.
He crouched in front of her.
“You do not have to go in until you’re ready.”
“She might think I don’t want her.”
“She is an adult. She can wait.”
Lily looked through the glass again.
“I’m going.”
She entered carrying the glass horse.
Grace’s face broke when she saw her.
Not theatrically. No scream, no collapse. Her lips parted. One hand lifted halfway and stopped, as if she feared reaching would make the child disappear.
Lily stood at the foot of the bed.
Emma remained tucked against Grace’s side.
“I’m Lily,” she said.
Grace laughed once through tears.
“I know.”
“I brought you this, but it’s actually Emma’s.”
She placed the glass horse on the blanket.
Grace touched the chipped tail.
“Your grandmother gave you one like this.”
“This is the one.”
Grace looked at her.
Lily climbed onto the bed without asking.
Grace held both girls.
Marcus remained in the hallway.
The therapist watched him more than she watched the room.
After nearly an hour, Karen came out.
“Grace will see you for five minutes.”
Marcus entered alone.
Grace was sitting upright. The girls had been taken for snacks. The glass horse remained on the tray beside her water.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Marcus stopped six feet from the bed.
Grace looked at his neck tattoo, his suit, the metal watch she had given him on their first anniversary.
“You still wear it.”
“Yes.”
“It used to lose four minutes a day.”
“It still does.”
“You could have fixed it.”
“I did. It began again.”
Grace nodded as though the watch had behaved predictably.
Her voice was rough.
“You look like your father.”
“I’m older than he was when you last saw him.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Marcus accepted it.
She studied his face.
“You hit Victor.”
“You saw the photograph.”
“Everyone saw it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For hitting him?”
“For making it easy to believe I would hurt you.”
Grace looked toward the window.
Below, traffic moved along the avenue. A city bus stopped, released passengers, and continued.
“I believed the signature for five years,” she said. “Then I found an old birthday card you signed for Karen. The last letter was different.”
“Why didn’t you call me then?”
“I did not know which version of you would answer.”
“There is one version.”
“No. There is the man who carried Lily out of that restaurant under his coat. There is the man who sent flowers to a judge’s wife the morning before sentencing. There is the man who never asked why his uncle’s problems disappeared.”
Marcus moved to the chair but did not sit.
“I am cooperating.”
“I heard.”
“I gave them the accounts.”
“I heard that too.”
“They may charge me.”
“They should.”
He looked at her.
Grace’s eyes filled but did not soften.
“You don’t get a medal for finally being frightened of what you built.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer left both of them tired.
Marcus sat.
Grace picked at the edge of the hospital blanket.
“I used to imagine this conversation,” she said. “In some versions I screamed. In some I forgave you before you asked. Once, in Kansas City, I spent a whole night planning how I would walk into your office and place Emma on your desk.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“She had the flu.”
The irrelevant detail nearly undid him.
Grace gave a faint, embarrassed laugh.
“I had packed a bag. Karen thought I had lost my mind. Then Emma threw up in the bus station bathroom, and we went back to the motel.”
Marcus looked down at his hands.
“I searched Kansas City.”
“You arrived two weeks after we left.”
“Someone told me a woman matching Karen’s description worked at a hotel.”
“I did. For three days.”
They sat with the years between them, no longer abstract. Three days in a hotel. Two weeks too late. A sick child in a bus station. A pay phone answered by the wrong man.
“I buried Nora in your family’s plot,” Marcus said.
“You didn’t know.”
“I didn’t ask enough to know.”
Grace looked at him.
“No. You didn’t.”
“Her mother asked whether Nora would be alive if I had been different.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Possibly.”
Grace nodded.
“That was honest.”
May you like
“I have not been good at honest.”
“You were always honest about facts. It was responsibility you edited.”
