Chương 13
Daniel heard the crash from the kitchen.
When he came upstairs, she stood beside the fallen lamp with both hands behind her back.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
He looked at the broken ceramic base.
“Sophie.”
“It fell.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
His first impulse was anger.
Not because of the lamp.
Because she was lying directly to his face after months of conversations about telling the truth.
He felt his voice rising before he spoke.
Then Sophie’s eyes changed.
She was watching for the sentence after the sentence.
He crouched.
“Did you knock it over?”
“No.”
He waited.
She began crying.
“I was jumping.”
“On the bed?”
“Yes.”
“Did I tell you not to jump on the bed?”
“Yes.”
“Did the lamp fall because you were jumping?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
She stared.
“Am I in trouble?”
“A little.”
“How little?”
“No jumping on the bed for a week.”
“That’s forever.”
“It is seven days.”
“For kids that’s forever.”
“Noted.”
Sophie looked at the broken lamp.
“Are you mad?”
“I’m annoyed.”
“Is that mad?”
“Mad’s cousin.”
She almost smiled.
Then she said, “I lied.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to remember?”
Daniel thought of Victoria.
“Yes.”
Sophie’s face fell.
“I’ll remember because I need to help you practice telling the truth. I’m not going to save it so I can use it against you later.”
She considered that.
“Okay.”
They cleaned the lamp together.
Daniel cut his thumb on a piece of ceramic because he ignored his own advice about letting him handle the sharp parts.
Sophie fetched a bandage.
“You’re not good at cleaning.”
“I’m excellent at cleaning.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Unrelated.”
She laughed.
It was not healing.
It was Tuesday.
That distinction became important.
Victoria wrote Sophie a letter in April.
She asked Daniel first.
He showed it to Dr. Levin.
Dr. Levin told him the decision was Sophie’s.
Daniel hated that answer.
“She’s five.”
“Yes.”
“She can’t evaluate an apology letter.”
“She doesn’t have to evaluate it. She can decide whether she wants to hear it.”
Sophie said no.
Daniel put the letter in a drawer.
Two weeks later she asked where it was.
He read it aloud.
Victoria did not ask forgiveness.
She did not explain her childhood.
She did not say she loved Sophie.
She wrote that Sophie had told the truth on the train, that Victoria had behaved cruelly, and that Sophie had not caused the canceled wedding.
At the end, she wrote, I hope the yellow gummy bears continue to taste like soap.
Sophie laughed.
Then cried.
Daniel held her.
She did not ask to see Victoria.
In May, Daniel did.
He met Victoria at a coffee shop downtown.
She wore a navy suit and no engagement ring.
The pale band where it had been was almost gone.
“You look tired,” she said.
“So do you.”
“Charming.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
He smiled.
“No.”
They ordered coffee.
For ten minutes they discussed taxes.
The canceled venue had refunded forty percent of the deposit.
Victoria wanted half of what returned because she had paid half originally.
Daniel had somehow assumed she would not care.
She did.
He realized he had still been imagining her as a character in his moral crisis instead of a woman who had lost twelve thousand dollars.
They divided it.
Then Victoria said, “I started seeing someone.”
Daniel looked up.
“A therapist.”
“Oh.”
She smiled.
“Your face.”
“What was my face?”
“Panic.”
“Not panic.”
“Definitely panic.”
He stirred coffee he drank black.
Victoria noticed.
“You still do that.”
“What?”
“Stir nothing.”
He put the spoon down.
They sat with the familiar awkwardness.
“How’s Sophie?”
“Better.”
“Does she ask about me?”
“Sometimes.”
Victoria nodded.
“What does she say?”
Daniel hesitated.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“She asked if you still work at the tall building.”
Victoria laughed softly.
“I do.”
“She asked if you still hate gummy bears.”
“I never hated gummy bears.”
“She says yellow ones are soap.”
“They are not.”
Daniel smiled.
Then Victoria’s face grew serious.
“I’m not asking to see her.”
“Okay.”
“My therapist says I need to understand whether wanting to apologize is about Sophie or about needing her to make me feel less ashamed.”
Daniel looked at her.
“That sounds miserable.”
“It is.”
“You always hated therapy.”
“I still do.”
“Good.”
She laughed.
For a moment he missed her so sharply he looked away.
Victoria saw.
Neither spoke.
Finally she said, “Do you ever think we could have fixed it?”
Daniel considered the question.
Months earlier he would have searched for the correct answer.
Now he let the uncertainty remain.
“Maybe.”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
He continued.
“But I don’t think I could ask Sophie to live inside that maybe.”
She nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
“What about you?”
“Could I have fixed it?”
“Yes.”
Victoria looked through the coffee shop window.
“I don’t know.”
Then she smiled sadly.
“I’m working on not knowing things.”
“Sophie says I’m terrible at it.”
“She’s right.”
They finished their coffee.
Outside, Victoria hugged him.
Daniel let her.
There was no reconciliation hidden inside it.
No promise.
No romantic ambiguity.
Two people who had once expected to spend their lives together stood on a sidewalk for several seconds because ending badly did not erase every morning that had been good.
Then they stepped apart.
“Take care of her,” Victoria said.
Daniel looked at her.
“I will.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He understood.
“I’ll try.”
“That’s better.”
Summer came.
Sophie learned to swim without floaties.
Daniel missed the first time she crossed the shallow end because his flight from Chicago was delayed.
She was furious.
“You said you’d be there.”
“I know.”
“You promised.”
“I know.”
“You always say work isn’t more important.”
“It wasn’t a choice between you and work. The plane was delayed.”
“You could have not gone.”
Daniel almost defended himself.
Then he sat beside the pool while Sophie dripped water onto his pants.
“You’re right. I could have not gone.”
May you like
She stared at him.
“I still had to make a decision, and I went.”
