Chương 4
“Three were after he told you I died.”
Claire’s breath stopped.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I never mailed those.”
Richard sat down again.
Claire stared at him.
She knew exactly which letters Damian meant.
After Damian’s memorial, she had developed a habit she never told anyone about. She wrote to him late at night when sleep refused to come. She wrote about Lily kicking, about the nursery wall she could not choose a color for, about how angry she was that people kept bringing casseroles.
She never mailed them.
She put them in a cedar box inside the desk in her bedroom at Richard’s house.
Her father had been the only other person with access.
“You took those?”
Richard rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“I was worried about your mental state.”
“So you searched my desk?”
“You were obsessing.”
“I was grieving.”
“You were disappearing.”
Claire stood again.
Her chair scraped backward.
“What did you do with them?”
“I had Marjorie remove things that were keeping you—”
“Things?”
Richard flinched.
“Letters. Photographs. His belongings.”
“My belongings.”
“Yes.”
Damian looked at Claire.
“Marjorie kept some of them.”
“Why?”
“She told me she couldn’t bring herself to destroy them.”
Richard’s face hardened.
“She stole confidential property.”
Claire stared at him.
“You’re worried about theft?”
He looked at her with something like exhaustion.
“I am worried about what happens when six-year-old memories are converted into evidence by people with motives.”
Damian stepped toward him.
Evan moved between them before Claire saw it happen.
Not aggressively.
Just enough.
“Don’t,” Evan told Damian.
Damian stopped.
Evan looked at Richard.
“And you should probably stop giving him reasons.”
Richard’s eyes narrowed.
“This does not concern you.”
Evan gave a small, bitter smile.
“I got married this afternoon. I assure you it concerns me.”
For the first time, Claire looked properly at her husband.
His face was pale. His hands were steady because his hands were always steady. That was part of his job. He could put an IV into the wrist of a terrified three-year-old while parents cried beside him.
Now his left thumb kept rubbing the new ring on his right hand.
Claire wanted to reach for him.
She could not.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Evan looked at her.
“Don’t do that yet.”
“What?”
“Apologize before either of us understands what you’re apologizing for.”
The words were gentle.
They made Claire cry.
Not loudly.
One tear moved down her face before she wiped it away, almost annoyed.
Evan looked toward the closed ballroom doors.
“We have two hundred people next door wondering whether they’re supposed to eat the salmon.”
Claire made an astonished sound that was half laugh, half sob.
Evan looked embarrassed.
“Sorry.”
“No.”
She covered her eyes.
“No, that was almost normal.”
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Richard said, “The salmon is already paid for.”
Megan, returning through the doors without Lily, stopped.
“Dad, if you say one more insane thing, I’m going to throw you through the cake.”
Richard looked at his younger daughter.
“I was stating a fact.”
“That’s the problem.”
Megan walked to Claire.
“Lily is with Mom and the sitter upstairs. She’s okay. She wants to know if Damian likes pancakes.”
Damian looked startled.
“Does he?” Megan asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. Apparently that mattered.”
Claire wiped her face.
Megan looked at the envelope.
“Oh, God.”
“You knew?”
“No.”
The answer came fast.
Then slower, “Not this.”
Claire felt herself go still.
“What did you know?”
Megan looked at Richard.
He gave the smallest shake of his head.
Claire saw it.
“Megan.”
Her sister swallowed.
“Two years ago I heard Dad arguing with Mom about Damian.”
Claire stared.
“What?”
“I thought they were talking about the accident.”
“What did they say?”
“Mom said, ‘You don’t get to decide that for her forever.’ Dad said, ‘I already decided it when it mattered.’”
Richard stood.
“Megan, enough.”
She rounded on him.
“You made me think Mom was losing it.”
“Your mother was drinking.”
“She started drinking because you made everybody in that house feel crazy.”
Richard’s face went rigid.
Claire almost defended him.
The impulse arrived automatically, old as childhood.
Dad works too hard.
Dad means well.
Dad gets controlling because he worries.
Dad only becomes impossible when something important is at stake.
Then she looked at the dead man standing twenty feet away.
Important, apparently, had always meant Richard got to choose.
“Where’s Mom?”
“Upstairs,” Megan said.
“I want her here.”
Richard shook his head.
“Your mother is not well.”
“She was well enough to watch me get married.”
“She has had two glasses of wine.”
“Bring her.”
Megan left.
Richard leaned toward Claire.
“You need to understand something before your mother comes down here and rewrites history to make herself feel better.”
Claire looked at him.
“You’re scared.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
His fingers moved toward his cuff.
Richard always adjusted his cuff when people asked questions he did not want to answer.
Claire had watched him do it in depositions, board meetings, and once when she was thirteen and asked why her mother slept in the guest room.
Damian noticed too.
“What else did you do?” Claire asked.
Richard dropped his hand.
“I protected my family.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the only one you are willing to hear.”
“No. It’s the only one you keep giving because it lets you avoid verbs.”
Richard stared at her.
Claire heard her own breathing.
“What did you do?”
He looked at Damian.
Then at Evan.
Then toward the doors through which guests waited.
“I paid for Damian’s medical care after the crash.”
Damian laughed softly.
“You paid the deductible on a policy my union carried.”
“I also arranged St. Andrew’s.”
“You arranged it because the hospital wouldn’t release me without inpatient rehabilitation.”
“And because you were addicted to narcotics.”
“Yes.”
Claire turned toward Damian.
“You went to rehab?”
“Physical first. Then substance treatment.”
“For how long?”
“Seven months total.”
May you like
“Why didn’t you come back after?”
Damian did not answer immediately.
