Chương 7
Daniel remained near the doorway.
Evelyn lifted one hand but did not touch the glass.
“That photograph is terrible.”
Claire stared at her.
“It was your official portrait.”
“I know.”
“You chose it.”
“I chose it under duress.”
Daniel said, “I told you the other one was better.”
Evelyn looked over her shoulder.
“You said I looked approachable.”
“You did.”
“That was the problem.”
Claire covered her mouth again.
This time she was laughing.
Then crying.
The shift happened without warning.
Ethan took one step toward her.
She shook her head.
He stopped.
Claire sat on the edge of the sofa and bent forward, elbows on her knees.
For several minutes no one tried to fix anything.
Rain tapped against the apartment windows.
A refrigerator motor started in the kitchen.
Someone upstairs dropped something heavy.
Evelyn finally sat in the chair opposite her daughter.
Daniel stood by the bookshelf, looking at his dead wife’s folded flag.
“I went to the cemetery every Sunday for a year,” Claire said.
Evelyn’s eyes lowered.
“Then every month.”
Claire wiped her face.
“Then birthdays. Memorial Day. Sometimes when I was angry at Dad.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I knew.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I knew because you always came back with mud on your shoes.”
Claire looked down.
“That’s annoyingly observant.”
“I raised you.”
“So did she.”
The room tightened again.
Evelyn took the hit.
Claire looked at her mother.
“Did you ever come back to Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three times.”
Daniel turned.
“What?”
“The first was two years ago.”
Claire’s voice sharpened.
“You were here?”
“For less than a day.”
“Where?”
“O’Hare hotel.”
“You were twenty minutes away.”
“Closer to forty with traffic.”
Claire stared.
Evelyn exhaled.
“That was not the point.”
“No, but it is exactly the kind of annoying thing you would correct.”
“I’m sorry.”
Claire stood.
She walked to the kitchen, opened a cabinet, closed it, opened the refrigerator, then stood there looking at food she did not want.
Ethan joined her.
Quietly, he asked, “Water?”
She nodded.
He poured a glass.
Her hands shook too much, so he left it on the counter rather than passing it to her.
Another small thing he understood.
Claire said, “Did you see me?”
Evelyn answered from the living room.
“No.”
“Did you try?”
“Yes.”
Claire turned.
“How?”
“I went to the hospital where you worked.”
Claire froze.
At twenty-five she had been working as a physical therapist at Northwestern Memorial.
“I sat across the street.”
Claire’s throat tightened.
“For how long?”
“An hour.”
“And?”
“I left.”
“Why?”
Evelyn looked toward the framed flag.
“You walked out with two coworkers.”
Claire stared.
“You saw me.”
“Yes.”
“You just said no.”
“I thought you meant did we speak.”
Claire laughed angrily.
“That is lawyer behavior.”
Daniel said, “She’s always done that.”
Evelyn ignored him.
Claire came back into the room.
“What was I wearing?”
Evelyn looked confused.
“What?”
“If you saw me, what was I wearing?”
“A gray coat. Blue scarf. You were carrying a paper bag.”
Claire stopped.
She remembered the day.
The bag had contained cinnamon rolls for a coworker’s birthday.
Evelyn continued.
“You were laughing.”
Claire’s eyes filled again.
“I left because you looked happy.”
The words sounded gentle.
Claire hated them.
“So you decided not to ruin it.”
“Yes.”
“You decided.”
“Yes.”
“For me.”
“Yes.”
Claire’s voice rose for the first time.
“That was not your decision!”
Evelyn stood.
“No.”
“Stop agreeing with me like that makes it better.”
“It doesn’t.”
“You saw me. You were across the street and you left.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I told you.”
“No. You gave me the noble version. Tell me the ugly one.”
Evelyn looked at her daughter for a long time.
Then she said, “I was afraid you would hate me.”
Claire stood perfectly still.
“There.”
Evelyn’s voice lowered.
“That is the ugly version.”
Claire swallowed.
“I already did.”
Evelyn flinched.
Claire’s anger shifted instantly, becoming guilt, then anger at the guilt.
“I mean after you died.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I probably don’t.”
Claire sat again.
Daniel moved away from the bookshelf.
“Evelyn, why now?”
She looked at him.
“Because I learned about the wedding.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It was for me.”
“You had years.”
“I know.”
“You could have come when she graduated.”
“I know.”
“When she changed careers.”
“I know.”
“When her grandmother died.”
Evelyn’s face changed.
Claire looked up.
Daniel saw it too.
“You didn’t know,” he said.
Evelyn shook her head.
Claire’s grandmother, Evelyn’s mother, had died three years earlier after a stroke.
Claire whispered, “You didn’t know Grandma died?”
“No.”
The answer sounded different from all the others.
Evelyn sat down again.
For the first time, she looked genuinely disoriented.
Daniel’s anger softened despite himself.
“She died in March.”
“What year?”
“Twenty-three.”
Evelyn looked at the floor.
Claire watched her mother absorb a grief that was already old to everyone else.
“What did she know?” Evelyn asked.
Daniel answered.
“That you were dead.”
Evelyn nodded once.
Then again.
Claire saw her mother press her tongue against the inside of her cheek.
A habit from childhood.
Evelyn did it whenever she was trying not to cry.
Claire had forgotten.
The recognition hurt more than the gala had.
She looked away.
“My grandmother died believing her daughter was dead,” Claire said.
“Yes.”
No one defended Evelyn.
Not even Evelyn.
They ordered no dinner.
Eventually Ethan boiled the rigatoni because doing something seemed easier than sitting inside the silence.
Daniel found a bottle of wine and asked before opening it.
Claire said yes.
Evelyn said no.
“Still don’t drink red?” Daniel asked.
“I never liked it.”
“You drank it.”
“Because you ordered it.”
“You could have told me.”
“I did. Repeatedly.”
Daniel stared at her.
Claire said, “This marriage is making more sense by the minute.”
Ethan laughed from the stove.
The humor was uncomfortable.
It stayed anyway.
May you like
They ate pasta at the kitchen island after midnight.
Evelyn removed her uniform jacket and folded it over the back of a chair. Underneath she wore a white shirt with sleeves buttoned neatly at the wrists.
