Part 9
“I know.”
“And I need you not to make Theo comfort you.”
Nora’s expression sharpened.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think knowing and doing are different.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said tonight.”
Despite himself, Graham smiled.
It vanished quickly, but Nora had seen it. Her face softened in response, then closed again.
“We were terrible at being married,” she said.
“Yes.”
“We might be worse at this.”
“Probably.”
The ordinary bleakness of the answer settled them.
They agreed that Nora would speak with Dr. Levin the next afternoon. Graham would send copies of the letters and the old custody agreement. Nora would provide treatment records to an independent professional, not to Graham’s family office. No direct call with Theo would happen until the therapist recommended it and Theo agreed.
At the station entrance, Nora stopped.
“Does he still sleep with the rabbit?”
Graham looked at her.
“How do you know about the rabbit?”
“I bought it.”
He had forgotten.
Nora had given Theo the rabbit after his tonsil surgery when he was three. At the time, it had been soft and silver-gray, with both ears upright. Years of sleep had flattened the body and rubbed the fur thin around the face.
“He has it all the time now,” Graham said.
Nora pressed her lips together.
“I fixed the left ear twice.”
“There’s blue thread near the seam.”
“That was all I had.”
A train horn sounded beyond the platform.
Nora put on her coat.
“Don’t tell him I asked about it.”
“Why?”
“Because it will sound like I’m trying to prove I remember.”
“You do remember.”
“That isn’t the same as being there.”
She walked away before he could answer.
Graham reached the estate after ten.
Eleanor’s suitcases stood in the front hall.
She sat in the drawing room with Theo beside her on the sofa. He wore pajamas and held the rabbit in his lap. A half-finished game of checkers rested on the table.
Graham stopped in the doorway.
“I thought he was asleep.”
“He came downstairs.”
Theo looked at him.
“Did you see her?”
“Yes.”
“Is she okay?”
“She seems okay.”
“Did she ask about me?”
Graham remembered Nora’s request.
“Yes.”
Theo waited.
“She asked whether you still have the rabbit.”
The boy looked down at the toy.
“You told her?”
“She remembered it.”
Eleanor moved one checker into place.
“That proves very little.”
Graham’s gaze went to her.
“I didn’t ask you.”
Theo’s shoulders tightened.
Graham immediately regretted the tone.
Eleanor noticed.
“You see?” she said. “Already she has returned, and this house is hostile.”
“You made it hostile.”
“I am sitting with my grandson.”
“Who should be in bed.”
Theo picked up the rabbit.
“I’m not tired.”
He was exhausted. His face had the pale, fixed look he developed when adults argued around him.
Graham crossed the room and knelt beside the sofa.
“Come upstairs.”
“Is Grandma leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Because of the letter?”
“Because she made a decision that hurt you and kept important things from both of us.”
Theo glanced at Eleanor.
“Are you coming back?”
Eleanor’s eyes shone.
“I hope so.”
“That isn’t an answer,” Theo said.
Graham almost smiled at the repetition of his own earlier failure.
Eleanor reached for the boy’s hand.
“Your father needs time to understand what is best.”
Graham stood.
“No. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make my decision sound confused so he waits for you to correct it.”
Eleanor’s hand withdrew.
Theo slid off the sofa.
“I want to go to bed.”
Graham followed him upstairs.
At the bedroom door, Theo stopped.
“Did Mommy say why she left?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was sick and afraid, and that some of the choices she made were wrong.”
“Did she say sorry?”
“Not to you yet.”
“Why not?”
“She hasn’t spoken to you.”
Theo considered this.
“Can she say it in a letter?”
“She can.”
“Will Grandma tear it?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Grandma won’t be handling your mail anymore.”
Theo went into his room and placed the rabbit on the pillow.
“Did you know about the other letters?”
Graham felt the question like a physical blow.
“I knew your mom might write at the beginning,” he said. “I told Grandma to handle things because I was upset and didn’t know what to do.”
“So you gave them to her.”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“I didn’t know there were that many.”
“But you told her.”
“At first.”
Theo climbed into bed without removing his slippers.
“You helped.”
Graham sat beside him.
“Yes.”
The boy turned toward the wall.
Graham could have explained exhaustion, legal fear, Nora’s relapse, and the impossible pressure of protecting a four-year-old. All of it would have been true. None of it would have changed the sentence.
He helped.
“I’m sorry,” Graham said.
Theo did not respond.
In the morning, Eleanor left before breakfast.
Theo stood at an upstairs window and watched the car travel down the long drive. He did not wave. When it disappeared between the bare maples, he went to the kitchen and asked where the bread was.
Eleanor had always prepared breakfast before anyone else woke. Graham opened three cabinets before finding the loaf.
He burned the first pieces of toast.
Theo scraped the black surface with a butter knife.
“Grandma doesn’t burn it.”
“No.”
“She cuts it diagonally.”
“I can do that.”
“It’s already square.”
Graham looked at the toast.
Theo pushed the plate away.
May you like
For the first week, his grief over Eleanor appeared in small complaints. She knew which wool sweater did not itch. She packed apple slices without lemon because Theo disliked the taste. She remembered library day. Graham forgot library day and drove back to school with the book during a meeting.
The administrative machinery of the estate continued without Eleanor, but awkwardly. Staff members came to Graham with questions she had answered for years. The florist wanted approval for winter arrangements. The cook asked whether Tuesday menus should change. The property manager needed a signature for roof repairs on a guest cottage no one had used in six years.
