Chương 9
“You grabbed.”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised him.
Margaret touched her bracelet.
“I was angry before I saw her.”
“About what?”
She looked embarrassed.
“I couldn’t find this.”
Daniel stared at the diamonds.
“So you were angry at yourself.”
“Yes.”
“And you found someone safer to be angry at.”
Margaret’s eyes sharpened.
“You sound like Claire.”
“Good.”
She stood.
“I do not need to be psychoanalyzed by my son.”
“You need to apologize to Emily.”
“I attempted to.”
“You gave her a defense argument.”
“I said I shouldn’t have pulled the chain.”
“And then you explained why you were justified.”
“I was explaining context.”
“Context belongs after responsibility.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Is that what Claire told you?”
“No.”
Daniel folded the statement.
“This is me.”
He placed it in the trash.
Margaret watched him.
“You cannot publicly oppose me while I sit on the company board.”
“Watch me.”
“That company pays your salary.”
“I’m aware.”
“And your mortgage.”
“My mortgage is automatic draft. Very modern.”
“This is not funny.”
“No.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“It isn’t.”
Margaret sat again.
For the first time Daniel saw fear beneath her control.
Not fear of Emily.
Fear of losing him.
It did not erase anything.
It complicated it.
“Does Claire hate me?” Margaret asked.
Daniel looked at his mother.
“She doesn’t have time to hate you right now.”
Margaret absorbed that.
“Emily could press charges.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she will?”
“I have no idea.”
“I would settle.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“Of course you would.”
“That is not an insult.”
“It is if the first thing you offer is money.”
“What would you offer?”
“An apology.”
“She may want compensation.”
“Then let her decide that after you apologize.”
Margaret looked down at her hands.
“I don’t know how to speak to her without making it worse.”
Daniel softened despite himself.
“Start by not explaining yourself.”
Margaret gave him a dry look.
“That removes most of my vocabulary.”
He nearly smiled.
Nearly.
At work, Emily discovered that becoming visible was its own kind of punishment.
People at the hotel recognized her.
Guests whispered.
A woman at brunch asked whether Emily was “the wedding girl” and then requested a selfie.
Emily refused.
The woman complained to management.
Luis banned staff photography requests involving Emily and reassigned her temporarily to banquet prep, where she could work away from guests.
Emily hated the arrangement because she knew it was meant kindly.
She also accepted it because rent was due.
Her adoptive mother called every four hours.
Susan Carter wanted Emily to come home.
“I am home.”
“I mean here.”
“You live forty minutes away.”
“Exactly. Very convenient.”
“Mom.”
“Your father bought soup.”
“I’m not sick.”
“He panics through soup.”
Emily smiled.
She sat on the floor of her apartment, back against the sofa.
“I’m okay.”
Susan was quiet.
“You went to that wedding because of her.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Emily picked at a loose thread on her jeans.
“Because you would have told me not to go.”
“Yes.”
“And then I would have gone anyway.”
“Yes.”
“And you would have worried.”
“I worried anyway.”
Emily closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Susan sighed.
“You spent three years looking at photographs of a sister who didn’t know you existed. I’m not angry you wanted to see her.”
“You sound angry.”
“I’m angry you thought you had to do it alone.”
Emily leaned her head against the sofa.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
“That’s usually when people need other people.”
Emily smiled.
“You should put that on a mug.”
“I’ll have your father order twelve.”
A week after the wedding, Claire went to see her father.
Thomas Bennett lived in the same house where Claire had spent most of her childhood.
The kitchen had been remodeled twice, but the dent in the pantry door remained from the time Claire had driven a plastic ride-on car into it at age four.
Thomas still refused to fix it.
He claimed it was history.
Claire used to think that was sentimental.
Now she wondered whether families simply chose which damage to preserve.
Thomas opened the door before she knocked.
He looked at the document case in her hand.
“So Judith told you.”
Claire walked past him.
“That’s an interesting first sentence.”
Thomas closed the door.
“I didn’t know how else to begin.”
“How about, ‘I’m sorry I hid your sister from you’?”
He winced.
Claire entered the kitchen.
Thomas followed.
He was sixty-two, broad-shouldered, gray-haired, still dressed like an attorney even after reducing his practice to three days a week.
He adjusted his glasses.
A nervous habit.
Claire had inherited it despite not wearing glasses. She pushed invisible frames up her nose when stressed.
She caught herself doing it and dropped her hand.
“How much did you know?”
Thomas opened the refrigerator.
“Do you want water?”
“No.”
He closed it.
“Dad.”
“I knew Laura was pregnant.”
“You knew she placed the baby for adoption.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know it was a girl?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know her name?”
“No.”
“Did you know Mom looked for her?”
“Later.”
“When?”
“Years later.”
“How much later?”
Thomas pulled out a chair.
Claire remained standing.
He sat anyway.
“When you were in college.”
Claire stared at him.
“She told you?”
“She asked me for money to hire an investigator.”
“And?”
“I said no.”
“Why?”
Thomas rubbed his forehead.
“Because Laura was not stable about it.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“You mean she was emotional.”
“I mean she had spent years living with regret, and every few months she became convinced finding the child would fix it.”
“Emily.”
“What?”
“Her name is Emily.”
Thomas looked down.
“Yes.”
Claire placed both hands on the table.
“Did you ever think I might want to know?”
“Of course.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it wasn’t my story to tell.”
Claire stared at him.
“That might be the most cowardly sentence anyone has said to me this week.”
May you like
Thomas’s jaw tightened.
“I was trying to respect Laura’s decision.”
