Part 2
“The one about the ship.”
A parcel had arrived that morning from a children’s bookstore in Rhinebeck. Graham remembered seeing it on the breakfast table while he was answering a call. Theo had asked whether he could open it. Graham had said yes without checking who sent it.
“Was the letter inside the package?”
Theo nodded.
“Did the book come from your mom?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened after you found the letter?”
“Grandma came in.”
“Did she read it?”
Theo pulled the rabbit higher.
“She said it wasn’t for me.”
Graham felt anger rising in the center of his chest, but Theo was watching him now. He forced his hands to remain open on his knees.
“What did you do?”
“I said it had my name.”
“And then?”
“She told me to give it to her. I didn’t.”
A little pride appeared in the statement, followed immediately by fear.
Graham touched Theo’s ankle through the dark trouser fabric.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“She tried to take it.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“No.” Theo swallowed. “She grabbed the paper. I held the other side.”
The image came too easily: Eleanor’s manicured fingers closing around a letter while Theo pulled back, the paper splitting between them. His mother would not have needed to strike him. She had always possessed more efficient ways of making resistance feel shameful.
“Did she say anything else?”
Theo’s gaze dropped to the rabbit.
“She said Mommy sent it because she wanted something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Grandma tell you what your mom wanted?”
Theo shook his head.
“She said Mommy went away because she didn’t want to be with us. She said I needed to stop pretending.”
Graham looked toward the window.
On the pond, wind pushed loose snow in thin streams across the ice. Years earlier, Nora had taken Theo there in a red plastic sled before the ice was thick enough to walk on. Graham remembered standing at the edge with coffee in both hands, laughing while Nora ran until she slipped and landed on her back. Theo had been three, bundled so heavily he could barely move his arms. He had laughed until he hiccupped.
The memory did not arrive as comfort. It arrived as evidence against the life Graham had accepted.
“Dad?”
He turned back.
“Is it true?”
“What part?”
“That she didn’t want me.”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly, and Theo noticed.
“How do you know?”
Graham opened his mouth.
He had no honest response that would not expose how little he knew.
Nora had left after months of treatment, relapse, and promises that collapsed almost as soon as she made them. She had signed an agreement suspending contact while she entered another residential program. She had called Graham twice from Arizona. The first conversation had ended with her crying so hard he could not understand her. The second had ended when Graham accused her of caring more about escaping shame than returning to Theo.
After that, the calls stopped.
Graham had told himself Nora’s silence was a choice.
He had repeated the explanation until it hardened into fact.
“I know your mom loved you,” he said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
The correction was quiet and exact. It sounded like Nora.
Graham looked at his son’s wet eyes and understood that reassurance without truth was another kind of lie.
“I don’t know why she hasn’t been here,” he said. “I thought I knew. Now I need to find out.”
Theo considered this.
“Will Grandma be mad?”
“She might be.”
“At me?”
“No.”
“At you?”
“Probably.”
Theo pressed his cheek against the rabbit’s head.
“Are you mad at her?”
“Yes.”
“Really mad?”
Graham rubbed a hand over his stubble.
“Really mad.”
Theo waited for more. When Graham did not give it, the boy leaned sideways until his shoulder touched Graham’s arm.
“Is she leaving?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The answer disturbed Theo more than Graham expected. He sat upright.
“But she lives here.”
“I know.”
“She makes my toast.”
“Sometimes.”
“She knows where my blue socks are.”
“That’s true.”
Theo began twisting the rabbit’s ear.
Graham recognized the confusion. Eleanor could tear a letter and still remember which foods Theo refused to eat when he was tired. She could cause harm and still be the person who sat beside him during fevers. Children did not have the luxury of reducing adults to a single act.
Neither did Graham.
He stayed until Theo’s breathing slowed. When the boy lay down, Graham covered him with the wool blanket from the foot of the bed. Theo kept his shoes on and the rabbit beneath his chin.
“Don’t let her throw the pieces away,” he murmured.
“I won’t.”
Graham placed the torn letter inside the top drawer of Theo’s desk.
Then he locked the bedroom door from the hallway side, something he had never done before, and went downstairs to speak to his mother.
Eleanor was no longer in the reading room.
He found her in the breakfast room, pouring hot water over tea leaves. She had changed nothing about her appearance. Her blouse remained smooth, her sleeves fastened at the wrists. Only the cup betrayed her. Porcelain clicked faintly against the saucer when she set it down.
“Where is the rest of the letter?” Graham asked.
“There is no rest.”
“Who sent the package?”
“I assume Nora.”
“Did you know it was coming?”
“No.”
“You opened Theo’s mail?”
“It was placed on the breakfast table.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Eleanor removed the strainer from the cup and set it on a small silver dish.
“You were on the phone. Theo opened the parcel. I saw the envelope.”
“And tore it out of his hands.”
“That is not what happened.”
“He told me what happened.”
“He is eight years old and distressed.”
“He knows whether you grabbed a letter.”
“I took something from him that he was not prepared to read.”
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“It had his name on it.”
“It came from a woman who has been absent for half his life.”
