Chương 13
She had finally stopped insisting the toxicology was wrong.
Now she was angry at Owen.
That seemed healthier.
She stood over the grave wearing bright red gloves and said, “You stupid son of a bitch.”
Daniel put flowers in the metal holder.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“He can’t hear you.”
“Then why are we buying flowers?”
“Fair.”
She stared at the headstone.
After a while she said, “Your father would’ve killed him.”
“Dad died eight years before Owen.”
“I know. I’m saying he would’ve waited.”
Daniel laughed.
His mother adjusted one of the flowers.
“Emily coming for Christmas?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should know.”
“We’re working on things.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what it sounds like.”
“I hate vague language.”
“You raised two sons. You should be used to disappointment.”
She slapped his arm.
Much lighter than Richard had.
Daniel smiled.
Then his mother became serious.
“I don’t forgive her.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked annoyed.
“More vague language.”
Daniel crouched beside the grave and pulled a weed from the edge of the marker.
“I think forgiveness is a stupid word.”
His mother stared.
“Your therapist tell you that?”
“I don’t have a therapist.”
“You should.”
“Probably.”
She put her hands in her coat pockets.
“What word do you like?”
Daniel thought about it.
“Trust.”
His mother looked at the grave.
“That seems harder.”
“Yeah.”
It was.
Emily moved home nineteen months after the hangar.
Not all at once.
First a toothbrush.
Then three sweaters.
Then a box of books.
Daniel noticed each addition and pretended not to.
When she finally brought her coffee maker, he stood in the kitchen with his arms crossed.
“We have a coffee maker.”
“Ours is terrible.”
“You bought it.”
“I made a mistake.”
“That thing cost thirty dollars more.”
“It has temperature control.”
“Water gets hot.”
“You have no standards.”
“Apparently.”
They looked at each other.
Emily raised an eyebrow.
Daniel said, “Too easy?”
“A little.”
She unpacked the coffee maker.
Trust returned badly.
That was something no one warned them about.
It did not arrive as a feeling.
It arrived as boring evidence.
Emily said where she was going and went there.
Daniel asked questions he would once have swallowed.
She answered even when the answers made her look bad.
Sometimes he checked.
Sometimes she noticed him checking.
Sometimes they fought about that.
Once Emily accused him of wanting surveillance instead of marriage.
Daniel told her she had trained him to doubt.
She slept in the guest room.
The next morning he found her sanding the bad wall patch.
“What are you doing?”
“It looks terrible.”
“I did that.”
“I know.”
“That’s rude.”
“It’s objectively bad.”
He stood in the doorway.
She kept sanding.
Dust collected in her hair.
“You can’t fix everything by sanding it,” Daniel said.
Emily stopped.
They both heard how symbolic it sounded.
She groaned.
“Please don’t.”
Daniel laughed.
“I’m sorry.”
“That was awful.”
“Very deep.”
“I hate us.”
She resumed sanding.
Daniel got the vacuum.
They repaired the wall together.
Not because it meant anything.
It just looked bad.
A year later, Emily applied for reinstatement of her nursing license.
Daniel did not know until she told him.
For a moment the old fear appeared.
“You already applied?”
“Yes.”
“Before telling me?”
Her face changed.
“I submitted an inquiry, not the full application.”
Daniel looked away.
Emily put down her fork.
“I should’ve told you first.”
“I don’t need permission rights over your career.”
“I know.”
“Stop.”
“Sorry.”
He rubbed his face.
“This is what I mean. I can’t tell whether I’m being reasonable anymore.”
Emily waited.
Daniel looked at her.
“Why do you want it back?”
She thought for a long time.
“I don’t know if I do.”
“Then why apply?”
“Because I want the choice.”
Daniel nodded.
That made sense.
He disliked that it made sense.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.”
Emily picked up her fork.
After a few seconds, Daniel said, “I might be weird about it.”
“I assumed.”
“Probably unfairly.”
“Almost certainly.”
He smiled.
She did too.
Richard called from prison twice during his sentence.
Daniel took the second call.
The recorded voice announced where it originated before Richard came on.
“Daniel.”
“Richard.”
A pause.
“How is Emily?”
“Ask her.”
“She visits.”
“I know.”
“She doesn’t tell me much.”
“That’s because she got better at boundaries.”
Richard breathed out.
“How are you?”
Daniel almost hung up.
Then he said, “Fine.”
“Liar.”
“Prison made you perceptive?”
“Boredom.”
Daniel sat on the back steps.
“What do you want?”
“I heard your mother filed a civil claim.”
“She did.”
Richard waited.
Daniel could almost hear him calculating whether to discuss it.
“Don’t,” Daniel said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
Another pause.
Then Richard said, “Do you still have the key?”
Daniel touched his pocket automatically.
He did.
He had carried it for so long that it moved from jacket to jeans to bedside drawer without thought.
“Yes.”
Richard laughed quietly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Why is that funny?”
“I spent one of the worst nights of my life believing that key was the only thing standing between me and ruin.”
Daniel looked out at the yard.
“And?”
“It wasn’t.”
“No.”
Richard sighed.
“It was Emily.”
Daniel said nothing.
“She had already copied everything.”
“Yes.”
“I knew her for thirty-four years and still underestimated her.”
“You knew the version that obeyed you.”
Richard was silent.
Daniel almost regretted it.
Then Richard said, “That’s probably true.”
They ended the call soon after.
Daniel sat on the steps with the phone in his hand.
The yard needed mowing.
A neighbor’s dog barked at a delivery truck.
Inside, Emily was arguing with the dishwasher because it had stopped draining again.
Daniel took the brass key out of his pocket.
It was scratched now.
Ordinary.
Small enough to lose in couch cushions.
He had imagined throwing it into a river.
Too dramatic.
He had imagined putting it on Owen’s grave.
Too sentimental.
He had imagined mailing it to Richard.
Too clever.
Instead Daniel went inside.
Emily was kneeling in front of the dishwasher with a towel on the floor.
“It’s making that noise again,” she said.
“What noise?”
“The bad noise.”
“All noises it makes are bad.”
“Helpful.”
Daniel opened the junk drawer.
Batteries. Tape. A screwdriver. Two takeout menus. A pen that probably did not work.
He dropped the brass key inside.
Emily looked up.
She saw it.
Neither spoke.
Daniel closed the drawer.
“Move.”
“Why?”
“I’m fixing the dishwasher.”
“You fixed the wall badly.”
“That was drywall.”
“You’re using that as a defense?”
“Absolutely.”
Emily shifted aside.
Daniel lay on the kitchen floor and reached under the machine.
After a minute she handed him the flashlight without being asked.
“Left,” he said.
She moved the beam.
“Other left.”
“You have two lefts now?”
“Apparently.”
She laughed softly.
Daniel found the clogged drain line.
It took twenty minutes, one scraped knuckle, and an unnecessary argument about whether the manufacturer had intentionally designed the filter to annoy homeowners.
When the machine finally started, water moved through the hose with a low rushing sound.
Emily sat on the floor beside him.
Daniel leaned against the cabinet.
They listened to the dishwasher run.
Nothing important happened.
No confession.
No promise.
No revelation.
After a while Emily rested her head against his shoulder.
Daniel let it stay there.
The brass key remained in the junk drawer among the dead batteries and takeout menus, no longer around his neck, no longer something anyone could demand from him.
May you like
And when the dishwasher finished its cycle, Daniel got up and opened it.
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