Chương 10
“No.”
“I was going to sell it.”
“I know.”
Rachel wiped both palms against her black pants.
Daniel stared at his mother’s photograph.
“She would have killed me if I buried it with her.”
Rachel let out a shocked laugh.
Daniel looked at her.
The laugh became a hand over her mouth.
For the first time that night they were both remembering the same woman without using her as evidence against each other.
Daniel shook his head.
“She hated waste.”
“She took sugar packets from restaurants.”
“She didn’t even use sugar.”
“She said that wasn’t the point.”
Daniel’s laugh came again, quiet and painful.
Then it stopped.
He looked at Rachel.
“You still lied.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get credit because the lie accidentally preserved what she wanted.”
“I know.”
He nodded.
“But I was wrong too.”
Rachel frowned.
“About what?”
“I said you stole something from Emily.”
“You didn’t.”
“I thought it.”
Rachel looked at him.
Daniel touched the pendant.
“You stole it from a dead woman.”
“That sounds better.”
“It wasn’t meant to.”
Rachel gave him the smallest, exhausted smile.
The phone remained in Daniel’s hand.
He swiped farther.
There were ordinary pictures.
Receipts.
Screenshots.
One photograph caught his attention.
A page of Rachel’s blue notebook.
He opened it.
Rachel went still.
Daniel looked at her.
“You photographed this.”
“I forgot.”
The image showed a handwritten list.
Not polished.
Not organized.
Numbers scratched out.
Mortgage.
Rent?
School.
Food.
Emergency.
Underneath those, three words were written hard enough to indent the paper.
Do not panic.
Daniel stared at them.
Rachel reached for the phone, then stopped herself.
“You said you wouldn’t read it.”
“You photographed it on my phone.”
“I forgot that.”
Daniel looked at the image.
Below the numbers, partly cut off by the photograph, another line appeared.
I need one thing that is mine.
He locked the phone.
Rachel looked surprised.
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to read the rest?”
“No.”
Daniel set the phone down.
Rachel stared at him for so long that he became uncomfortable.
“What?”
“You would have.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
Daniel opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Rachel looked toward the stairs.
“You would have read every page.”
“I might have.”
“You definitely would have.”
Daniel’s instinct was to argue about the certainty of definitely.
He let it pass.
“Maybe.”
Rachel folded the notebook and phone back toward herself.
Daniel said, “No.”
She froze.
“The phone is mine.”
Her expression changed.
“Yes.”
He picked it up.
“The notebook is yours.”
Rachel nodded.
Daniel held the phone in both hands.
“I’m not proud that you’re surprised I’m not reading it.”
Rachel said nothing.
He continued.
“And I’m not saying that because it makes what you did smaller.”
“I know.”
“I’m trying to understand how we got here without turning understanding into forgiveness.”
Rachel’s eyes lowered.
“That sounds like something you rehearsed.”
“I didn’t.”
“It was very polished.”
Daniel smiled faintly.
“Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize for grammar.”
“Good. I’m running out of things I can handle apologizing for tonight.”
Rachel looked at him.
“There are things you need to apologize for.”
“I know.”
“Not to make this equal.”
“I know.”
“It isn’t equal.”
“I know.”
She leaned back.
Daniel waited.
Rachel said, “You made money feel like permission.”
He frowned.
“For everything.”
“What does that mean?”
“If I wanted to buy something, I had to justify it. If I wanted to change something in the house, I had to explain the cost. If the kids wanted to do something, you asked what it cost before you asked whether they wanted it.”
“That was last year.”
“It was longer than last year.”
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck.
Rachel continued.
“You never said I couldn’t spend money.”
“Because I didn’t.”
“No. You just made spending it feel like failing a test.”
He looked at her.
“You had your own account.”
“That you knew the balance of.”
“We’re married.”
“I know.”
“I thought transparency was good.”
“It is.”
“Then what—”
“Transparency is not the same as surveillance.”
Daniel went quiet.
Rachel looked at the counter.
“I’m not saying you meant it that way.”
“That doesn’t help much.”
“No.”
He stood and walked toward the coffee machine out of habit.
At ten thirty at night, coffee would keep him awake until two.
He reached for a mug anyway.
Rachel watched.
“You’ll hate yourself tomorrow.”
Daniel looked at the mug.
He put it back.
“Right.”
That small familiar exchange nearly undid him.
Eleven months of hidden evidence sat between them, and Rachel still knew exactly how caffeine affected him.
Daniel opened the refrigerator.
Nothing appealed.
He closed it.
Rachel said, “You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“About what?”
“Us.”
He looked at her.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
Rachel nodded.
Daniel returned to the island.
“I’m sleeping in the guest room.”
“We don’t have a guest room.”
He had forgotten.
The room had become Rachel’s small office six months earlier.
“The sofa, then.”
“I can sleep on the sofa.”
“I said I’m sleeping on it.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed.
“You don’t have to martyr yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“You hate that sofa.”
“I do.”
“Then I’ll sleep there.”
“I don’t want you downstairs.”
Rachel stiffened.
Daniel realized how it sounded.
“I mean because of the kids.”
Her expression remained guarded.
“If one of them wakes up, I want to be close.”
“You can be upstairs.”
“Where?”
“Our room?”
Rachel looked at him.
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
Neither wanted to answer the obvious question.
Finally Rachel said, “You take the bedroom. I’ll take my office.”
“There’s no bed.”
“The chair reclines.”
“You complain about that chair every day.”
“I can survive one night.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You don’t need to punish yourself physically.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why—”
“Because I don’t want to sleep next to you tonight either.”
Daniel stopped.
Rachel’s voice was calm.
“That part keeps getting lost.”
He stared at her.
May you like
She continued.
“You’re angry at me. You should be. But I’m still angry at you.”
