Chương 10
Not untouched.
Mrs. Alvarez dusted it.
Teresa opened the windows in spring.
Once a year I changed the batteries in a plastic alarm clock Sofia had hated because its numbers were too bright.
But nobody slept there.
Offering it had felt generous for perhaps two seconds.
Then it felt like something else.
Like making Clara carry my grief because I did not know where else to put it.
“There’s another room across the hall.”
“That would be good.”
I nodded.
She started up.
“Clara.”
She stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
Her expression closed immediately.
I heard how useless the phrase sounded after an entire evening built around apologies.
I corrected myself.
“I should have noticed sooner.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
“That’s different.”
“Not completely.”
She shifted Ellie higher against her shoulder.
“You can’t notice what everyone is working very hard to hide.”
It was kinder than I deserved.
Perhaps because she was tired.
Perhaps because blame also required energy.
She continued upstairs.
I went back to the dining room.
Sofia’s coins were still on the table.
One beside a coffee cup.
One near Father Michael’s abandoned dessert plate.
The third was missing.
I assumed Ellie still had it.
Teresa came in behind me.
“You have to tell Margaret.”
“I know.”
“Tonight?”
I looked at the clock.
1:17 a.m.
“No.”
“She might hear from Dante.”
“She probably already has.”
Teresa sat down.
“What if Clara lied about some of it?”
The question annoyed me because I had asked myself the same thing.
“Then we find out.”
“She took seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“So?”
“So people do things for money.”
“Yes.”
“Including lie.”
“Yes.”
Teresa stared at me.
“You’re not even going to defend her?”
“I don’t know her well enough to defend everything she’s ever done.”
That seemed to unsettle her.
“Then why are you taking her side?”
“I’m not.”
I picked up one coin.
“I’m refusing to take Dante’s automatically.”
Teresa looked toward the doorway.
“When did we become this kind of family?”
I rubbed the edge of the coin with my thumb.
“We always were.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Our father had affairs.”
She looked away.
“Our mother knew.”
“Don’t.”
“She knew and pretended she didn’t because divorce would have embarrassed everyone.”
“That was different.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
She said it too fast.
Then her shoulders sagged.
“I don’t know.”
That was becoming the most honest sentence in the house.
Paul entered carrying his coat.
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re not driving.”
“I had one glass of wine four hours ago.”
“Stay anyway.”
He studied me.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be alone.”
The words embarrassed me as soon as they came out.
Paul did not react to them.
“Fine.”
He put his coat back over the chair.
Teresa smiled faintly.
“You two are emotionally exhausting.”
“You’re welcome to leave.”
“No chance.”
Mrs. Alvarez appeared with coffee.
We sat around the ruined memorial table until nearly two.
Nobody discussed Sofia.
Nobody discussed Dante either.
Paul complained that my coffee beans were burned.
Mrs. Alvarez told him he had no taste.
Teresa found a plate of cookies and ate three while insisting she was not hungry.
For twenty minutes, we were simply tired people sitting in a large house after something terrible had happened.
Then my phone vibrated.
Margaret’s name appeared on the screen.
Teresa stopped chewing.
Paul looked at the phone.
“Do you want me here?”
“Yes.”
I answered.
Margaret did not say hello.
Her voice was very calm.
“Is the little girl in your house?”
I looked toward the ceiling, toward the room where Ellie was sleeping.
“Yes.”
Margaret inhaled once.
“Then before Dante gets to you again, there is something Clara does not know.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“What?”
Margaret was silent long enough that I heard traffic somewhere behind her.
Then she said, “The seventy-five thousand dollars never came from me.”
Margaret did not sound angry when she said it.
That frightened me more than if she had screamed.
I leaned against the dining table.
“Then who paid Clara?”
Teresa stopped moving.
Paul set his coffee down.
Margaret exhaled through her nose.
“Dante did.”
I looked at Paul.
He was already reaching for a notepad.
“Through you?”
“No.”
“Then why did Clara think you arranged it?”
“Because he wanted her to.”
The room seemed to narrow around the phone.
“Margaret, start at the beginning.”
“I’m not giving you the beginning at two in the morning.”
Her voice stayed controlled, but I could hear something breaking underneath it.
“I’m giving you the part that matters tonight.”
“Fine.”
“Three years ago I found an invoice from a lawyer I didn’t recognize.”
“Which lawyer?”
“Robert Hale.”
Paul’s pen stopped.
The name matched the law office on the folded page.
Margaret continued.
“I asked Dante about it.”
“He said it was related to a tenant dispute.”
“I believed him because I had no reason not to.”
There was a pause.
“That sounds stupid now.”
“No.”
“It does.”
She laughed quietly.
“I was married to him for twenty years and still thought lying required nervousness.”
Teresa lowered her eyes.
Margaret went on.
“About six months later I found another payment.”
“Same firm?”
“Yes.”
“Same matter?”
“I didn’t know.”
“What changed?”
“The amount.”
“How much?”
“Seventy-five thousand dollars.”
Nobody in the dining room breathed normally after that.
Margaret said, “It came from an account Dante used for property expenses.”
“Not your personal account?”
“No.”
“Did you authorize it?”
“No.”
“Did you know Clara’s name?”
“Not then.”
“Then when?”
“Last year.”
Her voice changed.
For the first time, the calm became effort.
“I found a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“Dante and a woman.”
“Clara?”
“I know that now.”
“Where?”
“A restaurant.”
“That proves an affair.”
“Yes.”
“But not Ellie.”
“I know.”
“Did you confront him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That it ended years ago.”
“Did he mention a child?”
“No.”
I heard movement on her end.
A cabinet opening.
May you like
Glass touching a counter.
Margaret was probably in her kitchen.
