Chương 6
Noah looked at Evelyn.
“Am I in trouble?”
She wanted to say no.
The word nearly came out automatically.
Instead she squeezed his hand.
“You did something dangerous.”
His eyes filled.
“But I’m here.”
He nodded.
The deputy waited.
Noah told the story in pieces.
He had seen the key on Margaret’s dressing table after going upstairs to get her reading glasses.
He had known what it opened because he had watched Margaret use the pillbox before.
He had taken one tablet.
He had not planned what to do with it until he passed the dessert staging room and saw the family’s cakes already plated.
He knew Lily’s because hers had extra frosting and no raspberry sauce.
“She hates raspberries,” he explained.
The deputy nodded.
Noah said he pressed the pill into the frosting.
“Why?”
Noah picked at the knee of his suit pants.
“I wanted Mom to see.”
“Why not show your mom the pill?”
Noah looked embarrassed.
“Because Grandma would say I stole it.”
“But you did steal it.”
“I know.”
The deputy waited.
Noah’s voice dropped.
“If it was in food, then they’d have to believe food can have pills in it.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Child logic.
Terrible, dangerous, perfectly clear child logic.
The deputy asked, “Did you want Lily to eat it?”
“No.”
“How were you going to stop her?”
Noah’s face crumpled.
“I thought she’d see it.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
Noah looked toward the closed door behind which Margaret was being interviewed.
“That everybody would be mad.”
The deputy’s voice remained gentle.
“Has your grandmother given you pills?”
Noah nodded.
“How?”
“In cocoa.”
“Whole?”
“No. She smashes them.”
“With what?”
“A spoon.”
“Where?”
“In her bathroom. I saw one time.”
“How did you know it was medicine?”
“Because it tasted the same as when I licked the one tonight.”
Evelyn’s chest tightened.
The deputy asked how many times.
Noah could remember five clearly.
Maybe more.
He described waking heavy-headed.
Once he had wet the bed and tried to hide the sheets.
Margaret had found them and told him he was too old for that.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
Noah saw her.
“Mom?”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re crying.”
She wiped her face.
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
She caught herself.
There were too many things she wanted to say at once.
It wasn’t your job.
You should have told me.
You could have hurt Lily.
I should have noticed.
She settled for the only sentence she trusted.
“We’re going to talk about everything. Not tonight.”
Noah nodded.
After the deputies finished, the clinic physician cleared Lily to remain under observation at the resort until morning rather than attempt the closed mountain road to the nearest hospital. A snowplow crew was working the lower pass.
Lily woke at two and asked why everybody looked “gross.”
Daniel laughed unexpectedly.
Evelyn did too.
Even Noah smiled.
Lily ate another cracker.
Then she looked at Noah.
“Did you put that thing in my cake?”
Nobody moved.
Noah’s smile vanished.
Evelyn started to intervene.
Noah said, “Yes.”
Lily stared at him.
“Why?”
“I was being stupid.”
“That’s not a reason.”
The sentence sounded so much like Evelyn that Daniel looked at her.
Noah rubbed his palms together.
“I wanted Mom to find out something.”
“So you put it in mine?”
“I thought you’d see it.”
“I almost swallowed it.”
“I know.”
Lily’s mouth trembled.
“I hate you.”
Noah nodded.
Daniel took a breath.
“Lily—”
Evelyn touched his arm.
Noah looked at his sister.
“I know.”
Lily turned away.
The matter was not repaired because adults wanted it repaired.
Evelyn was grateful for that, though it hurt.
At three in the morning she sat alone in a corridor chair holding a paper cup of coffee that had gone cold.
The resort was quieter now.
The storm still worked against the windows, but the human parts of the building had settled into night. Somewhere down the hall an ice machine dropped a load into its bin. A man in pajamas walked past carrying a golden retriever’s leash and stopped when he realized the dog was not attached to it.
He turned around.
The absurdity of it made Evelyn smile.
Then she cried again.
Not loudly.
She put the coffee on the floor and pressed her fingers into her eyes until colors appeared.
Daniel found her there.
He sat in the chair beside her.
For a while neither spoke.
He had changed out of his dress shirt and into a resort sweatshirt someone from housekeeping had found. He looked younger in it.
More ordinary.
That made her angrier.
“I should have told you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I thought she stopped.”
“Yes.”
“I did tell her to stop.”
“You also protected the person who ignored you.”
He leaned forward.
“I didn’t think of it that way.”
“That’s the problem.”
He nodded.
She studied him.
“Did the money matter?”
He did not answer quickly enough.
Evelyn looked away.
“Okay.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You took four hundred and twenty thousand dollars from her.”
“As a loan.”
“With what terms?”
He rubbed his hands together.
“We never formalized all of it.”
She laughed quietly.
“Of course you didn’t.”
“She wasn’t holding it over me.”
“Daniel.”
“She wasn’t.”
“You just spent ten minutes telling me you didn’t want to jeopardize the relationship.”
“I didn’t want to blow up the family over one incident I believed had stopped.”
“One incident she specifically told you about.”
“Yes.”
“While you owed her almost half a million dollars.”
He stood.
“That doesn’t mean I traded Noah for money.”
Evelyn looked up.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were about to.”
“No. You were.”
He stared at her.
The words landed.
Daniel sat again.
His face went gray.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then: “I liked the money.”
Evelyn was not expecting that.
May you like
He looked at the floor.
“I hated needing it. I hated that she knew. I hated every phone call after it. But I liked that the problem went away.”
