Part 3
Her eyes went to Celeste.
Daniel stopped. “You don’t have to clean it.”
Mara looked confused by the permission.
He led them into the library and closed the doors.
The room had been designed to feel warm despite its size. Dark shelves ran from floor to ceiling, broken by wide windows facing the lake. Celeste had chosen the rug, an antique red and blue pattern that made Sophie complain her toy animals disappeared on it. Daniel had once promised to replace it. He had forgotten.
He sat on the leather sofa with both girls.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
The house continued around them. A vacuum started somewhere upstairs, then stopped almost immediately. A cabinet closed in the kitchen. Outside, sprinklers clicked across the lawn in steady arcs. Daniel could hear his own breathing, too loud and uneven.
Sophie finally looked at him.
“You smell like airplane.”
He laughed once, and the sound caught in his throat. “I probably do.”
“And coffee.”
“That too.”
Mara wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand.
Daniel took a tissue from the side table and offered it to her. She accepted it but folded it into smaller and smaller squares instead of using it.
“Can you tell me what happened to the cup?” he asked.
Mara stared at the tissue.
“You’re not in trouble.”
Her fingers stopped.
“You won’t be in trouble for telling me the truth,” he added.
Sophie spoke into his shirt. “I bumped it.”
Mara turned quickly. “No, you didn’t.”
“I did.”
“You were sitting down.”
“I kicked the table.”
“You didn’t.”
Daniel looked between them. “It’s okay. The cup doesn’t matter.”
Mara gave him a strange, searching look.
“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated.
“It was expensive,” she said.
“So?”
“So things that are expensive matter.”
“Not more than you.”
Mara looked away.
Daniel felt ashamed of how dramatic the sentence sounded. He had spent so much of his life putting prices beside things that he no longer trusted himself when he tried to speak about what could not be priced. The house had cost eight million dollars. The cup, apparently, six hundred. The flight he had changed overnight had cost nearly twelve thousand because the company had booked a suite he never used.
He could tell anyone the number.
He could not tell himself how many mornings his daughters had been afraid.
“What happened?” he asked softly.
Mara’s eyes filled again. She blinked hard.
“Sophie wanted more milk.”
“I didn’t,” Sophie said.
Mara squeezed her hand.
Daniel noticed.
“Did she want more milk?” he asked.
Mara nodded.
“Why is she saying she didn’t?”
Mara’s chin trembled. “Because she’s little.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“She forgets.”
Sophie pushed away from Daniel just enough to look at her sister. “I don’t forget.”
Mara’s voice sharpened. “Yes, you do.”
The younger girl’s mouth folded inward.
“Mara,” Daniel said.
“I told her not to ask.”
“Why?”
No answer.
“Why shouldn’t she ask for more milk?”
Mara folded the tissue again. It was no longer a square. It was a hard little wedge between her fingers.
“Celeste says she pours too much,” she whispered.
Daniel waited.
“And?”
“And she said if Sophie spilled again, we’d both lose breakfast.”
“For how long?”
Mara shrugged.
“One morning?”
Another shrug.
Sophie supplied the answer. “Till lunch.”
Daniel closed his eyes for a second.
He saw a hotel dining room in Singapore, a waiter lifting silver covers from four courses. He saw himself leaving most of it untouched because he had been answering emails.
“When Sophie asked,” Mara continued, “Celeste said no. Then Sophie reached for the pitcher, but I tried to stop her. The tray moved.”
“The cup fell?”
Mara nodded.
“Did Celeste raise the hanger before or after it broke?”
Mara’s eyes went to the library doors.
Daniel reached across and drew the curtains over the glass panels.
“After,” she said.
“Where did she get it?”
No answer.
“Mara?”
“It was there.”
“In the entrance hall?”
“She brought it.”
“From where?”
Mara’s fingers began to shake.
Sophie whispered, “The closet.”
Daniel knew the closet. It was beneath the stairs, where coats and umbrellas were kept. There were wooden hangers inside, all of them made to match because Celeste disliked plastic.
“She took it from the closet after the cup broke?” he asked.
Mara nodded.
That meant time.
Not a flash of temper. Not an object snatched from a table without thought. Celeste had walked away from the children, opened a door, selected a hanger, and returned.
Daniel’s phone vibrated in his pocket.
The screen showed six missed calls from Victor Lane, his chief operating officer, and three messages about the Singapore deal. He turned the phone facedown on the table.
Mara noticed.
“You can answer.”
“No.”
“It might be work.”
“I know.”
“You always answer Victor.”
Daniel stared at her.
She said it without accusation. That was worse.
“Not today.”
Mara looked at the phone as if she expected it to ring until he changed his mind.
A knock came at the library door.
Both girls jumped.
Daniel stood, furious at the reflex before he even knew who was outside.
“It’s Rosa,” came the housekeeper’s voice.
He opened the door only far enough to see her.
“Dr. Patel is coming,” Rosa said. “She said twenty minutes.”
“Thank you.”
Rosa glanced behind him. “Should I bring something for the girls?”
Sophie shook her head.
Mara said, “We’re not hungry.”
Daniel looked at Rosa. “Toast. Fruit. Nothing on a tray.”
Rosa’s eyes moved to him, then lowered.
He almost asked what she knew. Not yet. The girls could hear.
“Where is Celeste?”
“Upstairs.”
“Is she packing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask Thomas to stay near the front hall. If she tries to leave with anything besides personal belongings, call me.”
Rosa hesitated. “Sir, Mrs. Mercer is on the phone with someone.”
“Who?”
“I heard her say attorney.”
Of course she had.
Daniel shut the door and leaned against it.
Sophie watched him. “Are you mad?”
May you like
“Yes.”
“At us?”
