Chương 14
Daniel had argued.
Henry had made a promise.
None of them had known the boy who would stand here thirteen years later holding a screwdriver.
Ethan's phone buzzed.
Rebecca.
He read the message.
Hope today's okay.
He typed:
We're at the terminal.
Three dots appeared.
Then stopped.
Then appeared again.
Her reply:
I haven't been there in years.
Ethan looked at Laura.
“Can she come?”
Laura stiffened.
Henry looked away.
Ethan waited.
Laura rubbed dust from her trouser leg.
“Do you want her here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Laura studied him.
Then nodded.
Rebecca arrived forty minutes later.
She came through the side door carrying a cardboard tray with four coffees and one hot chocolate.
Henry stood when he saw her.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Rebecca looked at his cane.
“You finally use it.”
Henry looked embarrassed.
“Occasionally.”
“You're holding it.”
“Coincidence.”
She smiled.
Henry's eyes filled.
He looked away.
Ethan watched them and suddenly understood that his story had injured people long before he was old enough to know it existed.
Rebecca set the drinks on a bench.
“I didn't know what anyone wanted.”
“Hot chocolate,” Ethan said.
“I remembered you said coffee tastes like burnt dirt.”
“It does.”
Henry took a cup.
“You bought mine black.”
“You were seventy the last time I saw you, Henry. I assumed you had not become fun.”
Henry laughed.
Laura accepted tea.
Rebecca sat at the far end of the bench.
Nobody mentioned how strange it was.
Eventually Ethan opened the floor hatch again.
The compartment was empty.
He looked inside.
“So this is where all of you put it.”
Laura frowned.
“Put what?”
“Everything.”
Henry's mouth tightened.
Rebecca looked at the floor.
Ethan immediately regretted the sentence.
It sounded like something from a movie.
He said, “That sounded stupid.”
Rebecca smiled.
“A little.”
“Thanks.”
“You invited me for honesty.”
“Not that much.”
They sat.
A contractor pushed a cart through the distant concourse.
The wheels squeaked.
Rebecca drank coffee.
Laura peeled the cardboard sleeve from her cup and folded it flat.
Henry checked the time even though there was nowhere he had to be.
Ethan held the brass nameplate.
“I need everybody to tell me one thing.”
Three adults looked at him.
“No speeches.”
Henry nodded solemnly.
Laura said, “You are absolutely your father's child.”
Ethan ignored that.
“To Mom.”
Laura straightened.
“If Dad were alive, would you tell me now?”
She stared at him.
“Yes.”
“Because I found the box?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Laura looked toward the hatch.
“Because I watched what hiding it did to you.”
Ethan waited.
“And because,” she added, “I watched what hiding it did to me.”
He nodded.
“To Grandpa.”
Henry looked wary.
“Why didn't you tell me yourself?”
Henry's face changed.
“I was afraid Danny would keep you from me.”
“Even after he died?”
Henry looked down.
“Then I was afraid Laura would.”
Laura's head turned.
Henry held up a hand.
“I am not saying she would have.”
“You thought I might?”
“Yes.”
Laura looked hurt.
Henry continued.
“I also didn't want to be the one who changed your life.”
Ethan glanced at the open hatch.
“So you left the rug up.”
Henry nodded.
“I made you do the last inch because I was a coward.”
Ethan looked at him.
Henry did not soften it.
That was the first answer Ethan fully accepted.
He turned to Rebecca.
“Why did you stop fighting?”
Rebecca went still.
“You answered before. I want the real answer.”
She looked toward Laura.
Then Henry.
Finally Ethan.
“I got tired.”
He waited.
Rebecca rubbed her hands together.
“I wish I had a better answer.”
“You don't?”
“No.”
“I was tired of being the person who called and wasn't answered. Tired of being angry. Tired of measuring my life against pictures of a kid I wasn't raising.”
Her voice tightened.
“And I started to like my own life.”
Ethan said nothing.
Rebecca's eyes became wet.
“That felt like betrayal.”
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
“Was it?”
“I don't know.”
Ethan thought.
“No.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“You were supposed to say that slower.”
He smiled faintly.
“I mean it.”
Rebecca nodded.
She wiped beneath one eye.
“I stopped fighting because eventually fighting was mostly about proving I hadn't left. And I had left. Not in the ugliest version of the word. But enough.”
Laura stared at her cardboard cup sleeve.
Rebecca continued.
“I sent the letters because that was what I could do without turning your childhood into a custody argument I probably couldn't win and maybe shouldn't.”
Ethan looked at the photograph.
“Do you regret it?”
“Yes.”
“Giving me to Dad?”
Rebecca's expression tightened.
“Some days.”
Laura looked up.
Rebecca met her eyes.
“I'm sorry.”
Laura shook her head.
“Don't lie now.”
Rebecca looked back at Ethan.
“Yes. Some days I regret it.”
His chest tightened.
“Other days I think you had things with them I could not have given you.”
“Like what?”
“Stability.”
Laura laughed softly.
“We were separated, broke, and Daniel had anger problems.”
Rebecca almost smiled.
“You still had a refrigerator with food.”
The simplicity of it silenced them.
Rebecca looked at Ethan.
“I don't know how to answer whether I made the right choice. I know I made a choice.”
Ethan nodded.
That answer felt closer to truth than certainty would have.
Henry stood and walked slowly toward the arched windows.
Laura followed after a minute.
Rebecca remained beside Ethan.
He turned the brass plate in his hands.
“My name was under there my whole life.”
Rebecca looked at it.
“Apparently Henry was subtle even in his sixties.”
Ethan smiled.
“Do you want it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It was always supposed to be yours.”
He traced the E.
“I don't know what to do with it.”
“Put it in a drawer.”
He looked at her.
“That's it?”
Rebecca shrugged.
“Not everything needs a ceremony.”
May you like
Across the hall, Henry was explaining to Laura why the walnut paneling had been installed incorrectly in 1978.
Laura appeared to regret asking.
