Chương 2
Now his face had gone strangely blank.
“Claire,” he said.
She turned.
He glanced at the envelope in her hand.
“Do you know what’s happening?”
“No.”
It was the first truthful thing she had said since the ring fell.
Evan nodded once.
“Okay.”
Richard came toward them.
“Everyone needs to calm down.”
Damian gave a small humorless breath.
Evan looked at Richard.
“I think everyone is remarkably calm.”
Richard stopped.
That was when Claire noticed Lily.
Her daughter stood between adults whose lives had abruptly rearranged themselves, clutching the teddy bear she slept with every night. Her chin was trembling.
Claire dropped to her knees.
“Baby.”
“Am I in trouble?”
The question broke something the revelations had not.
Claire pulled her close.
“No. God, no.”
“I wasn’t supposed to say Grandpa said it.”
Richard looked away.
Claire felt Lily’s heart beating against her chest.
“When did Grandpa say that?”
Lily glanced toward Damian.
“Before the flowers.”
“What flowers?”
“When Aunt Megan was fixing my hair.” Lily rubbed her nose against Claire’s shoulder. “I went looking for Teddy because he was on the chair. Grandpa was by the kitchen door talking to him.”
“To Damian?”
Lily nodded.
“What did Grandpa say?”
Richard stepped closer.
“Claire, don’t interrogate a six-year-old in the middle of—”
“Stop talking.”
Richard stopped.
Claire had never spoken to him that way.
Neither had most people.
Lily lowered her voice, imitating the solemn secrecy adults used around children.
“Grandpa said, ‘You should have stayed dead.’ Then Daddy said, ‘I’m done doing what you tell me.’”
Claire looked at Damian.
He did not deny it.
“And you knew who he was?”
Lily nodded again.
“From the picture.”
“What picture?”
“The one in your closet.”
Claire shut her eyes.
She had forgotten.
Not the photograph. She had never forgotten the photograph.
She had forgotten Lily knew where it was.
A shoebox on the top shelf held three pictures, a concert ticket, Damian’s old motorcycle key, a hospital bracelet from Claire’s pregnancy, and the newspaper clipping Richard had given her after Damian’s death.
The photograph showed Damian leaning against a railing at Coney Island, squinting into sunlight, one hand raised because he hated having his picture taken.
When Lily had found the box the previous winter, Claire had eventually told her the truth she understood.
That was your father.
He died before you were born.
Lily had cried because Claire cried.
Then she had asked whether dead people knew when you drew pictures for them.
Claire had said she hoped so.
Now Lily looked up at Damian with the serious concentration children gave adults who had suddenly become real after existing only in stories.
“You’re not dead.”
“No, sweetheart.”
“Did it hurt?”
Damian swallowed.
Claire saw his throat move.
“Some of it.”
Richard turned toward the wedding coordinator.
“Get security.”
Claire rose so fast her veil caught beneath her heel.
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No one touches him.”
“Sweetheart, you have no idea what this man—”
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
That landed harder than shouting would have.
Richard stared at her.
Claire looked down at the old engagement ring lying in her palm beside the sealed letter, then at the wedding band Evan had placed on her finger less than an hour ago.
Two promises on one hand.
Neither felt understandable.
Evan came closer, not touching her.
“We should get Lily out of here.”
Claire nodded.
The practical sentence saved her.
For twenty seconds there was something to do.
Her sister Megan took Lily. Evan asked the wedding coordinator to move guests to the adjacent cocktail room. Someone finally lowered the music. The doors to the ballroom closed in slow sections, leaving Claire, Evan, Damian, Richard, Megan, Lily, and a handful of immediate family beneath the chandeliers.
Claire could hear silverware being collected on the other side of the wall.
The ordinariness of it made her feel sick.
A wedding still had invoices even when a dead man returned.
Richard loosened his tie.
“I will explain this privately.”
“You’ve had six years to explain it privately.”
“Claire.”
Damian looked at Evan.
“I didn’t know you’d already done the ceremony.”
Evan gave a short nod.
“We did.”
“I’m sorry.”
Evan stared at him for a moment.
“For which part?”
Damian accepted that.
“All of it.”
Claire looked between them.
“Stop.”
Both men went quiet.
She unfolded the envelope.
The paper inside was the cream stationery she had used in Richard’s house because everything in that house had stationery.
Damian did not try to read over her shoulder.
Claire scanned her own handwriting.
Damian, they tell me you can’t hear me yet, which seems convenient since I’m still furious with you about getting on that motorcycle in the rain.
Her breath caught.
The accident.
Not a motorcycle, exactly. Damian had been driving a pickup truck back from a job site outside Albany. A tractor-trailer had jackknifed in rain. Three vehicles collided. Damian’s truck rolled down an embankment and burned after he was thrown through a broken side window.
A subcontractor named Javier Morales had been trapped inside and died.
Damian had been airlifted unconscious.
The first report Richard received said no one expected him to survive.
Claire read farther.
I’m supposed to stay in bed because apparently your daughter already has your timing and your talent for scaring me.
Claire stopped.
Damian’s face changed.
“Your daughter?”
He looked at Lily.
Then back at Claire.
“You told him I was pregnant?” Claire asked Richard.
Richard’s answer took too long.
Damian stared at him.
“You told me she lost the baby.”
Megan whispered, “Jesus.”
Evan looked down.
Claire felt something cold move through her body.
“When?”
Damian’s voice had become rough.
“When did he tell you?” Claire asked.
“Hospital. After I woke up.”
“You woke up?”
“Eleven days after the crash.”
Claire turned slowly toward her father.
“You told me he died on day five.”
May you like
Richard sat in one of the ballroom chairs.
It was such an ordinary movement that for a second she hated him for it.
