Chương 13
“I don’t need you to hate her for me.”
Richard’s face tightened.
“That may be difficult.”
“Then hate what she did.”
“I do.”
“And if you still love her, that’s your problem.”
He looked at Elena.
“You make compassion sound punitive.”
“I’m talented.”
He smiled.
Richard visited Victoria two weeks later.
She sat across from him in a plain institutional visiting room wearing clothes without a belt and no jewelry.
Her hair had grown darker at the roots.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Victoria finally said, “You look terrible.”
Richard laughed.
“You look incarcerated.”
“That’s fair.”
He sat.
She looked at his hands.
“Did Elena know you were coming?”
“Yes.”
“Did she care?”
“She said it was my decision.”
Victoria nodded.
“That sounds like her.”
“You don’t get to say that.”
Her eyes lifted.
Richard heard the cruelty in his own voice.
He did not take it back.
Victoria folded her hands.
“I wrote her again.”
“I know.”
“She didn’t answer.”
“I know.”
“I’m not asking you to make her.”
“Good.”
They sat in silence.
A corrections officer walked past the doorway.
Victoria looked thinner.
Richard hated noticing.
“I keep thinking about the funeral,” he said.
She flinched.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“I do.”
Her jaw tightened.
“You gave the eulogy.”
“You stood beside me.”
“I know.”
“You held my arm.”
Victoria looked down.
“I thought you were going to fall.”
“I almost did.”
“I know.”
Richard breathed slowly.
“You watched me bury the wrong girl.”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“How?”
She looked at him.
“I don’t have an answer that will help.”
“I’m not asking for help.”
“I told myself Elena was alive.”
“Where?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Safe?”
“I hoped.”
“Hoped.”
“I sent money.”
Richard frowned.
“To Elena?”
“Three times.”
“She never got it.”
“I know.”
“Where did you send it?”
“Addresses Laura gave me.”
“Laura says she stopped speaking to you six months after Elena disappeared.”
Victoria looked surprised.
Richard leaned forward.
“You lied to yourself so much you don’t know which lies survived.”
She stared.
Then laughed once.
“You sound like Naomi Park.”
“That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me all year.”
Victoria laughed again.
For a few seconds they were father and daughter.
Then the room remembered.
Victoria wiped her eyes.
“Does Elena ever ask about me?”
Richard could have lied kindly.
“No.”
Victoria nodded.
“Okay.”
“But sometimes she says something you used to say.”
Victoria looked up.
“Like what?”
“She called a restaurant napkin structurally suspicious.”
A smile appeared before Victoria could stop it.
“I used to say that.”
“I know.”
“She stole that from me.”
Richard almost said, She learned things from you because you were her sister.
He stopped.
Some truths did not need to be used as tools.
Victoria leaned back.
“I don’t expect her to forgive me.”
“I don’t know what she’ll do.”
“Do you forgive me?”
Richard looked at her for a long time.
“No.”
She nodded.
“I love you.”
Her mouth trembled.
“That seems unfair.”
“It is.”
When he told Elena about the visit, she listened while watering a basil plant in her apartment.
The plant was doing badly.
Richard noticed over video.
“You’re overwatering it.”
Elena looked offended.
“You killed my jade plant.”
“I learned.”
“Apparently this is your redemption arc.”
“I’m serious. The soil is soaked.”
She moved the phone closer.
“Are you diagnosing dirt through FaceTime?”
“Yes.”
She laughed.
Then grew quiet.
“How was she?”
“Thin.”
“I didn’t ask physically.”
“I know.”
Elena waited.
Richard said, “Ashamed. Defensive. Funny twice. Cruel once. Sad.”
“That sounds like her.”
He did not correct her.
Elena touched a basil leaf.
“Did she ask about me?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“That you don’t ask about her.”
Elena nodded.
“Good.”
A pause.
“What did she say?”
“Okay.”
Elena looked away.
Richard noticed.
“You don’t have to protect her from consequences.”
“I’m not.”
“You look guilty.”
“I’m allowed to have a face.”
“Apparently I’m still bad at this.”
“You are.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled faintly.
The call ended twenty minutes later after an argument about whether Richard needed a warmer coat for Portland.
He arrived two weeks later wearing the same dark wool coat from the train.
Elena opened her apartment door and stared.
“You own other clothes.”
“This is warm.”
“It’s eighty percent cashmere.”
“Wool.”
“Whatever rich animal died for it, it’s not waterproof.”
Richard lifted a shopping bag.
“I brought dinner.”
“What is it?”
“Thai.”
“From where?”
He named the restaurant.
She stared.
“That place is terrible.”
“The hotel recommended it.”
“The hotel hates you.”
They ate anyway.
The curry was too sweet.
Richard complained.
Elena reminded him she had warned him.
Tessa came by with Milo, who immediately asked whether Richard had learned anything else useful since the bicycle chain.
“I can make an omelet,” Richard said.
Milo looked skeptical.
“Like by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Without a chef?”
Richard looked at Elena.
“What have you been telling this child?”
“The truth.”
Later, after Tessa and Milo left, Richard helped Elena put dishes into the dishwasher.
He loaded them badly.
She rearranged them.
“You are controlling.”
“You put bowls upright.”
“They fit.”
“They fill with water.”
“They get washed.”
“They become cups.”
Richard stared at her.
“That makes no sense.”
“I missed this.”
The words came out before he could stop them.
Elena’s hands froze around a plate.
Richard looked down.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
He waited.
She placed the plate in the rack.
“I missed it too.”
Neither looked at the other.
The dishwasher hummed.
A bus hissed to a stop outside the building.
Someone upstairs dropped something heavy and cursed.
The ordinary sounds saved them from having to make the moment prettier than it was.
A year after the train, Elena agreed to visit the Connecticut house.
Not to move back.
Not to reclaim anything.
Just to visit.
Richard drove from New York.
Elena flew east alone.
They met in the driveway.
The house looked smaller.
May you like
That offended her.
Childhood homes were not supposed to participate in perspective.
