Chương 6
“Did she?”
“I don’t know.”
Maya did.
She remembered a stack of unopened envelopes bound with a rubber band in Claire’s desk.
Cream paper. Expensive stock. Return address from the Whitmore Foundation.
Maya had found them while cleaning out the house.
She had not opened them.
She had thrown them into a cardboard box marked KEEP? and then moved the box into the garage because grief had turned every decision into manual labor.
“She got some,” Maya said.
Daniel’s face changed.
“Did she open them?”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“That sounds like her too.”
For the first time, they shared something that belonged to Claire.
It was not affection.
It was irritation.
Strangely, that helped.
Daniel stood.
“Victor wants to do the test.”
Maya’s shoulders tightened.
“Tonight?”
“No. He wants a documented chain of custody through an accredited lab. His lawyer advised him not to use one of those home kits.”
“His lawyer works fast.”
“He called from the parking garage.”
“Of course he did.”
Daniel hesitated near the door.
“My mother wants to see you.”
“No.”
“I told her you’d probably say that.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because she told me to.”
Maya stared at him.
“Forty-one years old.”
“Forty-two next month.”
“Worse.”
He opened the door.
Before leaving, he said, “For whatever it matters, I’m sorry I kicked the case.”
Maya looked at him.
He waited.
She could have made him work harder.
Part of her wanted to.
Instead she said, “It matters a little.”
Daniel nodded and left.
At three in the morning, the contractions slowed enough that the obstetrician stopped talking as though delivery was likely before breakfast.
Maya slept badly.
She dreamed Claire was sitting in the passenger seat of Thomas’s old truck, eating crackers and refusing to say where they were going.
When Maya woke, Evelyn was asleep in a chair outside the room.
She had not been allowed in.
Someone had brought her a blanket.
Her pearls were gone.
Maya watched through the gap in the door.
Evelyn’s head leaned against the wall. Without the deliberate posture and careful expression, she looked older than seventy.
Maya pressed the call button.
The nurse entered.
“Can you tell her she can come in?”
Evelyn woke before the nurse reached her.
She entered carrying two paper cups.
“I brought coffee.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“I brought you tea.”
Maya accepted it.
It was terrible tea.
She drank it anyway.
For a while neither woman spoke.
Evelyn sat in the chair Daniel had used.
Claire’s letter rested inside a plastic document sleeve on her lap.
“I made the sweater,” Evelyn said.
Maya looked at her.
“For Claire?”
“For Daniel.”
That surprised her.
“He was born in January. I was pregnant with him when I started it, and I made one sleeve too short.”
Maya glanced at the case, now reassembled as best it could be inside the clear evidence bag.
“Claire took it?”
“I thought I lost it.”
“Apparently not.”
Evelyn gave a faint smile.
“She used to steal things she considered emotionally neglected.”
Maya laughed before she could stop herself.
“That is absolutely something she would say.”
“She once stole my wedding shoes because I complained they hurt.”
“What did she do with them?”
“Wore them to school.”
“How old?”
“Fourteen.”
Maya smiled into her cup.
The smile disappeared slowly.
“She never told me any of this.”
“I imagine she had reasons.”
“That doesn’t make it less strange.”
“No.”
Evelyn looked down at the letter.
“There’s more.”
Maya waited.
“Claire says she lied to all of us.”
“I’m discovering that.”
“She told Victor the baby belonged to somebody else. She told me she wasn’t pregnant. She told your grandfather she never wanted to see us again.”
“And?”
“She says none of those things were entirely true.”
Maya let out a tired breath.
“Entirely.”
“She was angry.”
“She was always angry.”
Evelyn looked up.
“Was she?”
The question offended Maya.
Then she considered it.
Claire had laughed easily at bad television. She sang badly while cooking. She hated scented candles, adored baseball statistics despite never watching games, and kept six different mustards in the refrigerator because she claimed sandwiches deserved standards.
She had also carried anger like a second skeleton.
“Yes,” Maya said. “But not only angry.”
Evelyn’s eyes lowered.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not letting me reduce her to the last years I knew her.”
“You already lost thirty years. Don’t lose the rest by making her simpler.”
Evelyn absorbed that.
Then she said, “She wrote that she was afraid if she told Victor the truth, he would come after her.”
Maya frowned.
“After her?”
“She was eighteen. Your grandfather had threatened Victor’s job and told Claire that if she continued the relationship he would make certain Victor never worked in casino security again.”
“Could he?”
“At the time? He could have made it difficult.”
“Did Victor know about the threat?”
“Yes.”
“And stayed?”
“For a while.”
Evelyn rubbed one thumb against the paper cup.
“Then Claire told him the child wasn’t his. He believed her. Or decided to.”
Maya stared at the tea.
“That’s convenient for him.”
“Yes.”
“You agree?”
“I am seventy years old. Agreement becomes easier when everyone involved has already made terrible decisions.”
Maya looked at her.
That sounded like something Claire might have said if she had lived long enough to become less certain of who deserved blame.
“Why didn’t you go after her?”
Evelyn’s mouth tightened.
“I did.”
“When?”
“A week after she left.”
“And?”
“She sent me away.”
“Once?”
“Yes.”
Maya waited.
Evelyn stared at her.
Maya said, “You tried once.”
“I believed she needed space.”
“For thirty years?”
“No.”
The answer came sharply.
Evelyn set the coffee down.
“For two years. Then pride became habit. Habit became embarrassment. Your grandfather told people Claire was difficult, that she had chosen to cut ties. I corrected some of them in the beginning. Then fewer. Then none.”
Maya felt anger return.
Not hot.
Heavy.
“You let her become the problem.”
May you like
“Yes.”
“My mother spent her whole life thinking you were ashamed of her.”
