Chương 10
“What?”
Laura shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“Everybody says nothing when it's something.”
Laura picked up her tea.
“She said almost exactly what I hoped she'd say.”
Rebecca smiled without humor.
“That's alarming.”
Ethan ate one fry.
It was cold.
“So what happened after the park?”
Rebecca's smile disappeared.
She looked at Laura.
Laura said, “Tell him.”
Rebecca folded her hands.
“Your dad called me that night.”
“Did he yell?”
“Yes.”
“Did you yell?”
“Yes.”
“What did Mom do?”
Laura said, “I yelled at both of them.”
“Grandpa?”
“He hung up.”
Ethan looked at Henry's empty place in the story and almost smiled.
Rebecca continued.
“Your father said the letters were done. I told him he couldn't do that.”
“Could he?”
“Yes.”
Ethan frowned.
Rebecca corrected herself.
“He had control over whether the letters reached you. The agreement between us was a promise, not magic.”
“So you sent them to Grandpa.”
“Eventually.”
“Why didn't you fight Dad?”
“I did.”
“How?”
“Phone calls. Letters. I spoke to an attorney.”
Ethan looked up.
“What did they say?”
“That I could spend a great deal of money creating conflict without necessarily creating a relationship with you.”
Rebecca's mouth tightened.
“The adoption was final. I wasn't your legal parent anymore. There was no simple button I could push to make Danny hand you birthday letters.”
“So you quit.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Yes.”
Ethan expected her to defend herself.
She did not.
His anger found empty air.
“You quit.”
“Yes.”
“Grandpa kept sending you pictures?”
“For a while.”
“Behind Dad's back?”
“Yes.”
“Then stopped?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Your father found out.”
“How?”
Henry had once accidentally sent Ethan a text meant for the pharmacy.
Ethan already knew the answer.
“Grandpa.”
Rebecca almost smiled.
“Henry.”
“What happened?”
“Danny told him if he kept contacting me, he wouldn't see you.”
Ethan stared.
Laura said softly, “That is true.”
“Dad threatened Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
Ethan pushed his plate away.
“He was awful.”
Laura closed her eyes.
Rebecca watched him.
“No.”
Ethan turned on her.
“You don't get to defend him.”
“I am not defending him.”
“Sounds like it.”
“I'm telling you not to make him easier than he was.”
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca looked at the photograph.
“Your father was scared I would become more important once you knew me.”
“That is stupid.”
“Yes.”
“He thought I'd stop loving him?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
Rebecca glanced at Laura.
Laura said, “Because Daniel believed love was competitive.”
Ethan remembered his father getting annoyed when Ethan said he preferred Henry's chili.
The memory was so stupid he laughed.
“What?”
Laura looked almost frightened by the sound.
“He got mad when I liked Grandpa's chili.”
Rebecca smiled.
“He always hated Henry's chili.”
“You had it?”
“Once. In 2009. I can still taste the cumin.”
Ethan laughed again.
Laura did too.
For a few seconds, they were three people making fun of a dead man's opinion about chili.
Then Ethan began crying.
There was no warning.
One second he was laughing.
The next he could not see the table.
He covered his face.
“Damn it.”
Laura moved first.
She slid beside him.
Ethan did not push her away.
Rebecca stayed where she was.
That mattered.
Laura put one arm around his shoulders.
He hated crying in public.
He hated the waitress walking past and pretending not to notice.
He hated that his father's chili opinions were still inside him while his father's lies were also inside him.
“I miss him.”
Laura's face pressed against his hair.
“I know.”
Ethan did not tell her to stop saying it.
Across the table, Rebecca looked at the window.
She wiped one eye with the heel of her hand.
After Ethan calmed down, nobody tried to make the moment important.
Rebecca ate her pie.
Laura finally drank cold tea.
Ethan finished the milkshake.
It tasted mostly melted.
Before they left, Rebecca wrote her phone number on a napkin.
Ethan said, “It's already in my phone.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you writing it?”
Rebecca looked at the napkin.
“Nerves.”
He folded it and put it in his pocket.
In the parking lot, Rebecca did not hug him.
She asked.
“Would it be okay?”
Ethan looked at Laura.
Then immediately hated that he had looked at Laura.
Rebecca noticed.
“You don't have to.”
Ethan stepped forward.
The hug lasted maybe two seconds.
Rebecca smelled like coffee and rain.
Ethan felt her hand hover over his back before settling lightly between his shoulders.
Then she let go first.
On the drive home, Laura said almost nothing.
Ethan watched highway signs pass.
After twenty minutes he asked, “Are you mad?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her.
“At me?”
“No.”
“Rebecca?”
“Some.”
“Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
“Yourself?”
Laura glanced over.
“Extremely.”
“That seems like a lot.”
“It is.”
They drove another mile.
Ethan said, “I like her.”
Laura's jaw tightened.
He saw it.
“That's what you were afraid of.”
“Yes.”
“You're jealous.”
“Yes.”
He waited.
Laura gave him a tired look.
“You wanted honesty.”
“I didn't think you'd just admit it.”
“I'm tired of pretending my worst emotions are not happening.”
Ethan looked out the window.
“Does it bother you?”
“Yes.”
“Does it make you want me not to see her?”
Laura was quiet for so long he thought she might refuse to answer.
“Yes.”
Ethan turned.
Laura kept her eyes on the road.
“I'm not proud of that.”
“Are you going to stop me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have already spent thirteen years letting fear make choices for me.”
Ethan looked down at the napkin in his hand.
He had unfolded it without realizing.
Rebecca's number ran across the paper in blue ink.
“What if I start calling her Mom?”
Laura's fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
Ethan regretted asking.
She answered anyway.
“I would hate it.”
He nodded.
“But,” Laura continued, “I would survive.”
For the next two weeks, life became offensively normal around the edges.
Ethan went to school.
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He forgot his science homework.
His friend Caleb asked why he had been absent Monday, and Ethan said family stuff because he could not imagine explaining biological mothers near a locker that smelled like gym shoes.
