Chương 10
Then she laughed.
“What?”
Anna asked.
“Nothing. I hate your chair.”
Anna stared.
Laura covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry. That was insane.”
Anna looked at the chair.
“My husband hates it too.”
They both laughed.
The sound in that foyer felt almost sacrilegious.
The boxes were in the garage.
One contained winter coats.
One contained old tax records.
The third held Daniel’s tools.
Laura sat on the concrete floor beside it.
She picked up his red-handled screwdriver.
The rubber grip was worn where his thumb used to press.
Memory arrived.
Daniel beneath the kitchen sink.
Swearing at a pipe.
Laura sitting on the floor eating crackers.
Sophie, not yet two, asleep upstairs.
“You know plumbers exist,” Laura had said.
“Propaganda.”
“You’ve been under there forty minutes.”
“I’m bonding with the house.”
“You hate this house.”
“I hate this pipe.”
“You complain about the taxes.”
“I also complain about you leaving cabinet doors open. Still married.”
Laura had thrown a cracker at his leg.
He had eaten it off the floor.
Disgusting man.
Her husband.
Laura held the screwdriver.
Anna stood a few feet away without speaking.
“I was angry at him,” Laura said.
Anna waited.
“For dying?”
Laura smiled weakly.
“For writing stupid letters.”
“Oh.”
“He told his father what he wanted to hear.”
“Sounds familiar.”
Laura looked up.
“What?”
“My husband told his mother we’d name the baby Caroline.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
Laura laughed.
“What are you naming her?”
“Not Caroline.”
They sat in the garage for a while.
Before leaving, Laura walked through the house once.
Not ceremonially.
She checked the loose shutter upstairs because it was tapping.
Anna said Michael had already scheduled someone.
Laura showed her the shutoff valve under the basement stairs.
She told her the refrigerator sometimes made a sound like a dying goat but was apparently fine.
At Sophie’s old bedroom, she stopped.
The walls had been repainted.
No rainbow decals.
No glow-in-the-dark stars.
Laura felt the loss physically.
Then she noticed one star remained near the closet ceiling.
She pointed.
“You missed one.”
Anna looked up.
“Want me to take it down?”
Laura considered.
“No.”
She left it.
Richard’s remaining claims eventually settled.
Not because he apologized.
He did not.
Not because a final dramatic piece of evidence destroyed him.
None did.
His attorneys advised him about cost, risk, and the weakness of trying to turn an ambiguous family promise into ownership after years of contrary records.
The title insurer became involved.
Negotiations dragged.
Richard wanted money.
Then he wanted recognition.
Then he wanted language saying Daniel had intended the house to remain in the Bennett family.
Laura refused.
That became her difficult line.
Nora asked whether she would consider a settlement statement acknowledging Richard and Margaret’s “longstanding familial connection to the property.”
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it says.”
“He’ll tell everyone it means he was right.”
“He may tell everyone that anyway.”
Laura knew this.
Settlement required tolerating imperfect narratives.
She hated that too.
“What do the Pierces want?”
“Peace.”
“And Jason?”
“Legally irrelevant.”
“Lucky Jason.”
Nora smiled.
“What do you want?”
Laura looked out her apartment window.
A man across the street was attempting to parallel park a van into a space clearly too small.
She watched him try anyway.
Forward.
Reverse.
Forward.
Reverse.
“I want him to admit it was mine.”
“He may never.”
“Then I want a judge to say it.”
“That could take time and money.”
“I have both.”
“You have some of both.”
Laura frowned.
Nora waited.
The van driver gave up and drove away.
Laura thought about Sophie.
About Anna.
About Daniel’s screwdriver in her kitchen drawer.
About Richard spending years defending a house he had already lost in every practical sense.
Winning could become another form of residence.
She did not want to live there either.
“What settlement protects the Pierces completely and ends his claims?”
Nora explained.
Laura listened.
She compromised on language about Richard’s historical connection to the property.
She did not concede ownership.
Richard relinquished the remaining claims.
No apology.
No reconciliation.
A signed agreement.
It felt anticlimactic.
It also worked.
Margaret continued seeing Sophie twice a month.
Sometimes Laura attended.
Sometimes Jason did.
Richard did not.
For nearly five months, he refused contact with Laura.
Then, one November afternoon, he appeared outside her office.
Laura nearly walked past him.
He looked older.
Not destroyed.
Not humbled into a different man.
Just older.
“Can we talk?”
Laura checked the time.
“I have twenty minutes.”
Richard almost smiled.
“You always did schedule emotions.”
“Eighteen now.”
They went to a coffee shop.
Richard ordered black coffee.
Laura ordered tea and immediately wished she had ordered coffee because she disliked their tea.
For a while neither spoke.
Finally Richard said, “I drove by the house.”
Laura looked at him.
“That seems healthy.”
He ignored the sarcasm.
“They painted the front door blue.”
“I know.”
“It looks ridiculous.”
“I like it.”
She did not.
But she enjoyed saying so.
Richard stirred coffee he had not sweetened.
“You took Daniel’s tools.”
“Some.”
“He had my socket set.”
“Do you want it?”
Richard looked surprised.
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
“That’s it?”
“What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know.”
Laura sipped bad tea.
Richard stared into his coffee.
“I thought he would give it back.”
“The house.”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
“He wrote that he would keep it in the family.”
“He also wrote that he told you things to avoid fighting.”
Richard’s mouth tightened.
“He was weak that way.”
Laura felt anger.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“You don’t get to use his flaw as evidence that you were entitled to ignore his choices.”
Richard looked at her.
“He was my son.”
“I know.”
“You think that means nothing.”
“I think it means a lot. I don’t think it means ownership.”
Richard looked toward the window.
Pedestrians moved past.
A woman pushed a stroller.
Someone inside the café dropped a spoon.
“I hated you,” he said.
Laura said nothing.
“When Daniel died.”
That surprised her.
May you like
“Why?”
“You still had him.”
