Chương 5
The drive took twelve minutes.
Neither of them spoke.
Noah slept.
At a red light, Daniel said, “My dad knows.”
Emily kept her eyes on the road.
“You called him?”
“I texted him while the doctor was examining Noah.”
“What did you say?”
“That Vanessa pushed Noah’s stroller toward the fireplace and the police were involved.”
Emily glanced at him.
“That’s direct.”
“I’m learning.”
She looked back at the road.
Daniel rubbed his hands over his knees.
“He replied, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’”
“That sounds like your father.”
“I haven’t answered yet.”
“That also sounds like your family.”
Daniel gave a tired exhale that might have been a laugh.
For three seconds they were almost themselves.
Then Emily remembered the stroller moving.
Her hands tightened on the wheel.
Back at the lodge, Daniel’s mother met them before they reached the elevators.
Evelyn Mercer was sixty-two, elegant even in ski pants, and had the unnerving ability to make concern look like accusation.
She wrapped both arms around Emily.
“Oh, honey.”
Emily stood rigidly.
Evelyn stepped back and touched Noah’s cheek.
“Is he okay?”
“The doctor thinks so.”
“Thank God.”
Then Evelyn looked at Daniel.
“What happened?”
“Not here.”
“I’ve been told three different things.”
“Then wait five minutes for a fourth.”
“Daniel.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Mom.”
Evelyn stopped.
His sister Claire arrived behind her carrying a half-zipped down jacket.
“Dad’s upstairs losing his mind.”
Daniel said, “That makes two of us.”
Claire looked at Emily.
“Do you need anything?”
“Yes.”
Everyone waited.
Emily shifted Noah higher.
“I need nobody to turn this into a family debate about Vanessa.”
Claire blinked.
Evelyn’s lips pressed together.
Emily continued.
“I don’t want to hear that she was under stress. I don’t want to hear that she drank too much, because she didn’t. I don’t want to hear about how long you’ve all known her. I don’t want to hear that maybe she didn’t understand how fast the stroller would roll.”
“No one is saying that,” Evelyn said.
“Someone will.”
Evelyn’s silence proved the point.
Daniel touched Emily’s elbow.
She pulled away without thinking.
He dropped his hand immediately.
Claire looked between them and said, quietly, “Okay.”
That was all.
The four of them rode the elevator upstairs.
Noah woke and began making soft conversational noises to his own reflection in the mirrored wall.
Claire stared at him.
“I could kill her.”
“Don’t say that,” Emily said.
Claire looked surprised.
“Sorry.”
“I’ve had enough people deciding violence is the natural next step.”
The elevator doors opened.
Claire nodded once.
“Fair.”
Daniel’s parents had booked a large suite for the retirement weekend. By the time Emily entered, she wished they had not.
There were too many people.
Daniel’s father, Richard, stood by the window in a quarter-zip sweater. Two of Daniel’s cousins sat on the sofa. An aunt Emily barely knew stood near the minibar. Someone had turned off the television, which somehow made the room feel even more like a tribunal.
Richard crossed toward them.
“Let me see him.”
Emily held Noah tighter.
Richard stopped.
A look of hurt crossed his face, then disappeared.
“Sorry,” he said.
Emily nodded.
Daniel shut the door.
His cousin Sam stood.
“We should leave.”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
Richard frowned. “They’re family.”
“Not for this.”
The cousins and aunt gathered their things without complaint.
When the room was quiet, Richard looked at Daniel.
“Tell me.”
Daniel did.
He did not minimize it.
Emily noticed.
He described the brake. The shove. Vanessa’s sentence. The stroller rolling. The hearth. Catching it. Vanessa reaching again.
Richard sat down midway through the story.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
When Daniel finished, nobody spoke.
Noah leaned out of Emily’s arms toward a lamp.
“Light,” Emily whispered to him.
He made an excited noise.
Richard stared at the carpet.
“I brought her here.”
Daniel said, “She’s worked with us for six years.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Richard looked up.
“I asked her to join this weekend.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“Why?”
“Because she’s leading design on the Aspen project.”
“You could’ve scheduled a meeting.”
Richard’s expression changed.
Emily knew that change.
He had information he did not want to give.
Evelyn saw it too.
“Richard.”
He rubbed both hands over his thighs.
“She told me things were complicated between you two.”
Daniel went still.
“Between who?”
“You and her.”
Emily looked at Daniel.
Richard continued quickly.
“I didn’t assume anything. She said there had been tension. That she’d made mistakes. That she wanted to clear the air with Emily.”
Daniel gave a disbelieving laugh.
“So you invited her on a family weekend?”
“It’s also a business weekend.”
“It was supposed to be Dad’s retirement,” Claire said.
Richard turned toward her.
“I have investors arriving tomorrow.”
Claire stared at him.
“You invited investors?”
“It’s two people.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Of course you did.”
For one brief, absurd moment, the room’s old family conflicts pushed into the new one.
Emily almost appreciated it.
People did not become different just because something terrible happened.
Richard still turned vacations into meetings.
Evelyn still resented it.
Claire still acted surprised after thirty years.
Daniel still paced when angry.
Noah still wanted the lamp.
Then Richard said, “Vanessa implied Daniel had given her reason to believe there might be a future.”
Silence returned.
Emily looked at her husband.
Daniel’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Evelyn whispered, “Daniel.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
Richard watched him.
“No what?”
“I never told her that.”
“That’s not exactly the question.”
Daniel’s eyes went to Emily.
She felt strangely calm.
“What did you tell her?”
“Emily.”
“What did you tell her?”
He leaned against the back of a chair.
“Once, months ago, I said I didn’t know if we were going to make it.”
Emily felt the room narrow.
“When?”
Daniel looked down.
“December.”
Noah had been seven months old in December.
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Emily remembered December as a series of dim mornings.
Breast pump parts drying on dish towels. Cold coffee. Noah screaming during naps. Daniel leaving before sunrise for a hotel opening in Vail. Emily’s mother canceling a visit because of pneumonia.
