Chương 8
“So why did you go?”
A small pause.
“Because I saw a picture Henry sent. You had grass stains on your knees. I knew where the soccer field was. I got in my car.”
“That is a terrible reason.”
“Yes.”
Ethan smiled despite himself.
Then his throat tightened.
“What did I say to you?”
Rebecca's voice softened.
“You asked if Walter was a police dog.”
“Why?”
“He was a seventeen-pound mutt.”
Ethan laughed.
Rebecca laughed too.
The sound unsettled him.
It felt familiar in no specific way.
He stopped.
Rebecca stopped.
“Sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“I don't know.”
“Okay.”
He touched the edge of the photograph.
“Why did you write every year?”
“Because I didn't know what else to do.”
“Why didn't you come get me?”
Rebecca inhaled slowly.
“Because you were not a package somebody stole from me.”
Ethan's face burned.
“I didn't mean—”
“I know.”
Her tone remained calm.
“Your father was your father. Laura was raising you. By the time the adoption was final, I had agreed to that. Later, when I wanted more contact, wanting more didn't give me the right to blow up your life.”
“But Dad blew it up anyway.”
“Yes.”
The answer came quietly.
“By hiding this.”
“Yes.”
Ethan looked toward Laura.
She was staring at the floor.
“Do you hate him?”
Rebecca took longer with that.
“Sometimes.”
Ethan waited.
“That's the truth,” she said. “Sometimes I hated your father. Sometimes I understood him. Sometimes both in the same afternoon.”
“He's dead.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Henry told me.”
“Did you go to the funeral?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I wasn't invited.”
Ethan looked at Laura.
Laura closed her eyes.
“Would you have come?”
“I don't know.”
“That means no.”
“No. It means I don't know.”
Ethan disliked the answer.
He also believed it.
“What do you look like now?”
Rebecca laughed softly.
“Older.”
“That's not helpful.”
“I have gray hair starting near my ears. I wear glasses for driving. Walter died years ago, so that's not much help either.”
“Do you have kids?”
“No.”
“Why?”
A pause.
“Life.”
“That is the worst answer you've given.”
“I agree.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Ethan.”
“What?”
“This is becoming a census.”
He smiled.
“Do you live here?”
“About two hours away.”
His fingers tightened around the phone.
“That close?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen me since the park?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“Were you scared Dad would find out?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Rebecca's voice became quieter.
“I was scared you would.”
Ethan frowned.
“Why?”
“Because showing up secretly would have made me exactly the person your father said I was.”
“What person?”
“Someone who cared more about what I wanted than what was good for you.”
Ethan looked at Daniel's jacket by the basement door.
He could almost hear his father saying something like that.
Not in a dramatic voice.
In the same tone he used when explaining why buying off-brand brake pads was a bad idea.
Ethan hated him for being imaginable.
“Can I meet you?”
Laura stood.
Ethan raised a hand toward her.
Rebecca did not answer.
“Did you hear me?”
“I did.”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes.”
The word broke slightly.
Rebecca cleared her throat.
“Yes.”
“Then why did you wait?”
“Because I need to ask your mom.”
Ethan stared at the phone.
“No, you don't.”
“I do.”
“I'm asking.”
“You are thirteen.”
“Everybody keeps saying that.”
“Because, inconveniently, you continue to be thirteen.”
That sounded enough like Laura that Ethan glanced at her.
Laura had heard.
Her mouth twitched.
Ethan said, “She'll say yes.”
Rebecca was silent.
Laura walked closer.
“Put me on speaker.”
Ethan hesitated.
Then he did.
Laura sat across from him.
“Rebecca.”
“Hi, Laura.”
Thirteen years sat inside those two words.
Laura rubbed a thumb along a scratch in the table.
“He wants to meet you.”
“I know.”
“I don't know what the right version of this is.”
“Neither do I.”
“I don't want it at our house.”
“I wouldn't ask that.”
“I don't want it at yours.”
“Okay.”
“I don't want Henry there.”
Ethan looked at her.
Laura ignored him.
Rebecca said, “Okay.”
“I don't want you telling him Daniel stole him from you.”
“I won't.”
“I don't want you pretending you were never allowed any choices.”
“I won't.”
Laura's voice shook.
“And I don't want you acting like I was just the woman who happened to be standing there after you left.”
Rebecca was quiet.
Ethan stared at his mother.
Laura looked immediately ashamed.
“Sorry.”
“No,” Rebecca said.
Her voice was softer.
“Don't apologize for that.”
Laura pressed her lips together.
Rebecca continued.
“You were the one there.”
Laura looked away.
For several seconds all Ethan could hear was Buster drinking water in the kitchen.
Finally Rebecca said, “There's a diner halfway between us. Bright, boring, public. Good pie.”
Ethan said, “When?”
Laura looked at him.
“Tomorrow.”
He blinked.
He had expected resistance.
“Tomorrow?”
“If we wait a week, none of us will sleep.”
Rebecca gave a small sound that might have been agreement.
They arranged to meet at eleven.
After the call ended, Ethan said, “You're really okay with this?”
“No.”
He frowned.
Laura stood.
“But we're doing it.”
That night Ethan took the strongbox to his room.
Laura objected.
He won.
Not because she surrendered authority, but because he pointed out that Daniel had hidden the box for thirteen years and asking Ethan to leave it unattended downstairs was “psychologically stupid.”
Laura said, “You have been reading too much.”
He said, “Maybe if I had the correct family biography, I'd have more time for fiction.”
She stared at him.
He immediately regretted it.
“Sorry.”
Laura nodded.
“Good night.”
She left.
Ethan sat on the floor beside the box.
For nearly an hour, he looked through papers he had skipped the first night.
There was no single document explaining everything.
May you like
That disappointed him.
There were receipts. Copies of letters. An old hospital bracelet with his name. A newspaper clipping about the railway terminal reducing passenger service. A photograph of Henry holding him. A signed sheet, not notarized, listing things Daniel, Laura, and Rebecca had agreed to before the adoption.
