Chương 12
“Claire trusted us.”
“Claire trusted me too.”
“She did.”
The past tense hurt.
Ruth looked toward the car, where Sofia was fastening her seat belt.
“Do not make her pay for your need to prove that.”
The drive home took thirty-eight minutes.
Sofia counted red cars for the first twelve, then fell silent.
When the mansion gates opened, she sat straighter.
“Is Vanessa there?”
“No.”
“Did you check?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She agreed not to come.”
“That’s not checking.”
Daniel pulled into the circular drive.
“I checked the security log.”
The smart-lock record showed no entry since Friday. He had not told Sofia about it because he did not want safety to become surveillance. Now he wondered whether children who had been frightened deserved more information, not less.
“No one has entered except me and Mrs. Alvarez,” he said.
Sofia looked at the front door.
“You go first.”
He did.
They walked through every room together.
Sofia checked closets, the pantry, and the powder room. She opened Vanessa’s empty office and stood at the threshold without entering.
The desk had been cleared. The place where the Briarwood folder had rested was marked by a rectangle in the dust.
“I don’t need tape anymore,” Sofia said.
“I bought better tape.”
“Where?”
“Kitchen drawer.”
She looked suspicious. “What kind?”
Daniel could not remember the brand.
“The expensive kind.”
“That doesn’t mean better.”
“No. But it often means I was manipulated by packaging.”
She smiled faintly.
Upstairs, Sofia found the photographs on her desk.
She picked them up one by one.
“Where were these?”
“Stored downstairs.”
“Why?”
“Vanessa removed them.”
“Was Mommy ugly?”
Daniel sat on the edge of the bed.
“No.”
“She looked sick.”
“She was sick.”
“Vanessa said sick pictures make people remember bad things.”
“Sometimes they do.”
Sofia held the photograph from the infusion room.
“I remember her shirt.”
Daniel did not. It was purple, with tiny white stars.
“She let me put stickers on her medicine pole.”
He looked closer. A faded dinosaur sticker clung to the metal stand.
“Did she?”
“You were getting coffee.”
Of course he was.
Sofia arranged four photographs on the dresser and returned the rest to the pillowcase.
“This one goes here,” she said, placing the garden photograph beside her lamp. “Vanessa can’t move it.”
“No.”
“What if she comes back?”
Daniel looked at the picture of Claire kneeling among tulips.
“Then she still can’t move it.”
Sofia watched his face.
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Can you stop?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She frowned. “You say that a lot.”
“I do.”
“Grandma says not knowing is how people hide.”
“Grandma says many things.”
“Is she wrong?”
“Not always.”
Sofia placed the hospital photograph beside the garden one.
“I want you to stop.”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“Stop being married?”
She nodded.
He wanted to promise.
Instead, he said, “I hear you.”
“That means no.”
“It means I am not going to make you responsible for deciding what happens between adults.”
“But it happens to me.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled, not with the panic from the foyer but with exhausted anger.
“Then why don’t I get to decide?”
Daniel had no answer that would satisfy either of them.
He opened his arms.
Sofia did not come to him.
That night, she slept in her own bed with the light on. Daniel slept in the chair beside the window because she did not want him on the mattress.
At one-thirty, she woke and asked whether he was awake.
“Yes.”
“You were snoring.”
“I can be awake and talented.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Very little does at one-thirty.”
She rolled toward the wall.
After a moment, she said, “I still want you to stop.”
“I know.”
On Wednesday, Daniel and Vanessa attended their first marital counseling session.
The therapist, Aaron Bell, practiced in an office furnished with two identical sofas angled toward each other. Daniel suspected the symmetry was intentional. Vanessa would have approved.
She wore a navy dress and her pearl earrings. She looked rested. Daniel wondered whether she was sleeping better away from the mansion and resented her for it.
Aaron asked what each of them wanted from counseling.
Vanessa answered first.
“I want to know whether there is a marriage left to discuss.”
Daniel rubbed his thumb against his watchband.
“I want to understand how we got here.”
Vanessa looked at him. “You know how.”
“I know what happened Thursday.”
“No. You know what you saw Thursday.”
Aaron leaned forward slightly. “What distinction are you making?”
Vanessa’s mouth tightened.
“Thursday was the first time Daniel watched the consequences of decisions he helped make.”
Daniel looked at the carpet.
Aaron turned to him. “What decisions?”
Daniel described the messages, the travel, the delegation.
He did not minimize.
Vanessa listened with her arms folded.
When he finished, Aaron asked, “What did you hope Vanessa would do when you told her to find a solution?”
“Manage things.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa laughed once.
Aaron waited.
Daniel tried again. “I wanted the conflict to stop without my life changing.”
The room became quiet.
Vanessa unfolded her arms.
Aaron asked her, “What did you hope boarding school would accomplish?”
She looked at the window.
“I wanted rest.”
“For whom?”
“For me.”
The answer seemed to surprise even her.
She continued before anyone could respond.
“I told myself it would help Sofia. Some part of me believed that. But I wanted silence. I wanted a week where I did not wake up afraid of what mood a child would be in.”
Daniel felt anger rise.
Aaron noticed.
“What are you experiencing?” he asked.
“I don’t like hearing my daughter described as something to survive.”
Vanessa turned toward him.
“I survived you by managing her.”
The sentence was cruel.
It was also true enough to make him still.
Aaron asked, “What happened when management stopped working?”
Vanessa’s fingers moved to one pearl earring.
“I became mean.”
May you like
Not stressed. Not reactive. Mean.
Daniel looked at her.
