Chương 9
“I did what people around you do. I learned what belonged near you and what didn’t.”
“Do not make me responsible for kicking that bag.”
“I’m not.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“I’m saying you built rooms where everybody learned to look at you before deciding how to behave.”
Richard’s anger rose.
Victoria saw it.
For once, she did not retreat.
“You think Lily changed you because she embarrassed you into having a conscience.”
“That is enough.”
“No. You know what I think?”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
“I think she scared you because she walked in looking like every consequence you ever paid somebody not to see.”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
She hated that and wiped them angrily.
“I did something disgusting. I know that. But don’t stand there pretending cruelty arrived in this family wearing my dress.”
She walked away.
Richard remained in the hallway.
Mara found him several minutes later.
“You look like someone hit you.”
Richard stared at the elevator doors.
“Possibly.”
“Victoria?”
“Yes.”
“Was she wrong?”
Richard looked at Mara.
Mara sighed.
“Never mind. Your face answered.”
Two weeks later, child services completed the first stage of Richard’s home evaluation.
The report was not flattering.
The house was safe.
It was also staffed in a way Denise described as “institutionally comfortable.”
Richard hated the phrase.
Lily loved it.
“What does it mean?”
“It means there are too many employees.”
“How many?”
Richard named the number.
Lily stared.
“Why?”
“The property is large.”
“Too many bathrooms.”
“We have discussed the bathrooms.”
Lily stayed with Gloria.
Richard visited.
He learned how to pick her up from school without turning the curb into a security operation. He learned which teachers needed identification and which entrance parents used. He learned not to bring gifts.
The first gift had been a tablet.
Lily refused it.
“I already have one at school.”
“This one is yours.”
“I don’t need it.”
Richard looked genuinely confused.
Lily looked at Denise.
Denise said, “This is useful practice for him.”
The second gift was books.
Lily kept those.
The third was a new winter coat.
She wore his charcoal one instead.
By December, the public scandal around Victoria had mostly moved on.
This irritated Lily.
She had not wanted it to last forever.
She had only assumed that if millions of people were angry on Tuesday, some of them would still be angry by Christmas.
Instead a singer got divorced, a senator said something offensive, a famous athlete crashed a car, and Victoria became old news.
Real life, Gloria explained, had poor attention span.
Victoria disappeared from public events.
She sold her condo in Washington and moved temporarily to a smaller place outside Baltimore.
Richard learned this from somebody else.
He did not call.
Then one Saturday afternoon, Lily asked about her.
They were in Richard’s kitchen.
Not the formal one.
The smaller family kitchen nobody had used regularly since Anna left.
Lily sat at the island while Richard attempted to cut an apple.
“Too thin,” she said.
He made the next slice thicker.
“Still too thin.”
“You’re abusing authority.”
“My mom said thick.”
He cut an offensively thick wedge.
Lily accepted it.
“Where’s Victoria?”
Richard put down the knife.
“At home, I assume.”
“Does she have a home?”
“Yes.”
“I mean after her job.”
“Yes.”
“Are you mad at her?”
“Yes.”
“For what she did to me?”
“Yes.”
“Are you mad at you?”
Richard looked at her.
Lily ate the apple.
“Sometimes.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
Lily chewed.
“Mom used to get mad at herself and clean the refrigerator.”
Richard smiled faintly.
“She did that as a teenager.”
“She said it was because throwing things was expensive.”
“That also sounds like her.”
Lily put the apple down.
“I want to talk to Victoria.”
Richard’s smile vanished.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“No.”
Lily looked at him.
The word had come too fast.
Richard heard it.
“So much for growth,” she said.
He leaned both hands on the counter.
“Lily, she humiliated you.”
“I know.”
“She frightened you.”
“I know.”
“You do not owe her a conversation.”
“I didn’t say I did.”
“Then why?”
Lily pulled at the locket chain.
“Because everybody keeps talking about what she did, and nobody asks me what I think.”
“I’m asking now.”
“No. You’re telling me no.”
Richard took a breath.
She was right.
Again.
“Do you want me there?”
“No.”
That answer hurt too.
He nodded.
“Gloria?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
Victoria agreed to meet at a public café.
She arrived ten minutes early.
Gloria and Lily arrived exactly on time.
Richard waited in a car two blocks away because he had promised not to interfere and because apparently this was what being there farther away looked like.
Victoria stood when Lily approached.
She looked thinner.
Lily noticed her clothes were ordinary.
Not poor.
Just ordinary.
That irritated Lily.
“You don’t have to dress like that.”
Victoria blinked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying not to look rich.”
Gloria covered a smile with her coffee cup.
Victoria sat.
“Fair.”
Lily sat across from her.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Victoria folded and unfolded a paper napkin.
Finally she said, “I’m sorry.”
Lily waited.
Victoria’s eyes moved toward Gloria, then back.
“I’ve said longer versions of that to other people.”
“I saw.”
“I thought maybe I shouldn’t make you listen to one.”
“Good.”
Victoria nodded.
“I kicked your food because I thought you were embarrassing me.”
Lily’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
“I wasn’t doing anything.”
“I know.”
“You said my mom wasn’t coming back.”
Victoria looked down.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I heard you asking one of the staff whether your mother could get into the ballroom without a ticket.”
Lily remembered.
She had asked because some stupid part of her had wanted to imagine her mother following her through the doors.
Not dead.
Late.
Adults were always late.
Dead was harder.
Victoria continued.
“I assumed you had been left there.”
May you like
“So you knew I was scared.”
Victoria swallowed.
