Chương 6
“Same thing in our family.”
June lived forty minutes away and worked night shifts as a respiratory therapist. Ethan heard a cart rolling behind her and someone calling for clean tubing.
“The video is everywhere,” she said.
“I know.”
“Can they get it taken down?”
“Not all of it.”
“How’s Sophie?”
“She asked whether I lied.”
June was quiet.
“I told her I spoke badly because I was angry.”
“That’s annoyingly responsible.”
“I’m trying.”
“Do you believe her?”
The question offended him before he understood why it had to be asked.
“Yes.”
“Because she’s your daughter?”
“Because I know when she’s inventing something. She adds dogs.”
“What?”
“If Sophie makes up a story, there’s always a dog in it. Usually one that knows karate.”
June laughed, then covered it with a cough.
Ethan looked at the closed drawer. “The pin was twisted.”
“That helps.”
“It doesn’t prove who did it.”
“You don’t have to prove it to strangers.”
“Margaret’s lawyer already called.”
June stopped laughing. “For what?”
“Defamation. Preserving evidence. Concern for Sophie.”
“Concern for Sophie?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Ethan.”
“I know.”
“No, listen to me. Don’t call that man. Don’t send him anything. Find your own attorney.”
“I can’t afford a Vale-sized legal war.”
“You can’t afford to pretend she won’t start one.”
That was the problem with June. She rarely offered comfort without attaching an instruction.
Ethan sat at the worktable until dawn. He did not answer the media, the attorney, or three messages from Celia. At six, he made coffee and watched light gather over the fenced backyards beyond his kitchen window. A lawn sprinkler clicked somewhere down the block though the grass was already wet.
Sophie woke at seven and asked to wear the flower-girl dress to school.
“It’s Saturday.”
“Then can I wear it to breakfast?”
“You’re already wearing pajamas.”
“I can put it over them.”
“No.”
She complained for nearly three minutes, which reassured him more than anything else had.
At nine, Celia arrived alone.
She had changed into jeans and a gray sweater. Her wedding hair remained partly pinned, the loosened curls making her look younger and exhausted. A diamond ring flashed on her left hand when she accepted Ethan’s coffee.
“Daniel’s sleeping,” she said. “Or pretending to.”
“How are you?”
“Married.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
Sophie sat on the living-room floor building a house for two plastic horses. She had already informed Celia that one horse was a lawyer and the other had been arrested for stealing carrots.
Celia watched her. “Does she know about the video?”
“No.”
“She’ll find out.”
“I know.”
“My mother says you arranged for someone to record it.”
Ethan nearly dropped his mug.
“She said the way you entered the ballroom looked rehearsed.”
“I was carrying a crying child toward a woman pointing at her.”
“I didn’t say I believed her.”
“You repeated it.”
Celia pressed both hands around the mug. “I’m trying to understand the version she’s telling everyone.”
“Why?”
“Because half my family is going to accept it.”
“Would you?”
Her eyes lifted.
“Before last night?” Ethan asked.
Celia looked toward Sophie. “I don’t know.”
The honesty hurt more than denial.
She reached into her bag and removed her phone.
“I listened to Mom’s messages.”
Ethan said nothing.
“The first three are about the wedding. She says I humiliated her, that she cannot believe I continued the ceremony after allowing my husband’s family to witness an attack on her character. The fourth says Sophie may have been confused. The fifth says you have always encouraged hostility.”
“What do the last four say?”
“That I owe her a conversation. That the gallery lease renewal is next month. That family businesses cannot survive public scandal.”
Celia operated a small contemporary art gallery downtown. Margaret called it Celia’s business when speaking to guests and a family investment whenever Celia disagreed with her. The Vale Foundation owned the building. A trust paid two employees’ salaries. Celia had spent six years turning a former furniture store into something respected, but Ethan had never known how much of it remained connected to Margaret’s money.
“Is she threatening to close it?”
“She would say she’s reminding me of financial realities.”
“What do you call it?”
Celia stared into her coffee. “I call it Tuesday.”
Sophie brought over a plastic horse.
“This is Pickle,” she told Celia. “He can’t lie because his mouth doesn’t open.”
Celia accepted the horse. “Useful.”
“He has to go to court.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing. The other horse said he did.”
Ethan and Celia looked at each other.
Sophie seemed not to notice. She returned to the carpet.
Celia set Pickle beside her mug.
“Mom wants me to issue a statement saying Sophie misunderstood an accident.”
“Are you going to?”
“No.”
The answer came clearly. Ethan waited for the qualification.
It arrived.
“But I don’t want to call her a liar publicly either.”
“You don’t have to.”
“She’ll say silence is an accusation.”
“Margaret thinks weather is an accusation if it rains during one of her lunches.”
Celia almost smiled.
Then she looked around the living room. It was a modest space, too full of Sophie’s books and Ethan’s unfinished repairs. One cabinet door sat on a towel near the window because he had glued a loose rail and forgotten to move it. Claire’s photograph stood on the mantel, not the formal portrait Margaret favored but a snapshot of her eating corn on the cob at a county fair.
Celia picked up Pickle again.
“Did Claire hate me?”
Ethan set down his mug.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because Mom says the hairpin was a message.”
“What kind of message?”
“That Claire left it with you, not me. That you turned it into a gift because you wanted to remind everyone she chose you.”
The sheer architecture of the accusation stunned him.
May you like
“Claire left almost everything with me because we were married and lived in the same house.”
“She left me nothing.”
