Chương 2
She was five and had lately been insisting she was too big to be carried, but she put both arms around his neck without arguing. Her feet were cold through her socks.
Victoria stood.
“Daniel, can we please discuss this like adults?”
“We will.”
“You’re doing that thing.”
He turned.
“What thing?”
“Deciding what happened before you’ve heard me.”
Sophie’s fingers tightened behind his neck.
Daniel looked at Victoria across the table.
Six weeks before their wedding, he had begun noticing that arguments with her often arrived wrapped in sentences like that. You’re doing that thing. You know how you get. This is why I was afraid to tell you. They were never accusations exactly. They were corrections to his version of himself.
Usually he considered them.
Sometimes she was right.
That was what made the other times difficult to recognize.
“I heard you,” Daniel said.
“No. You saw her crying and stopped listening.”
“I saw my five-year-old on the floor.”
“She made a mess.”
“She says she didn’t.”
“And children never lie?”
Sophie buried her face against his shoulder.
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
Victoria saw it and softened her voice.
“Daniel. We have talked about this. Dr. Levin talked about this. Grieving children test boundaries. She needs consistency.”
Daniel almost laughed.
It came out as air through his nose.
“Did Dr. Levin recommend making her scrub a carpet while you ate dinner?”
“That is not fair.”
“Did she?”
Victoria’s face went still.
“No.”
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t mean consequences are abuse.”
He had not used the word abuse.
Victoria seemed to realize that a moment later.
Her eyes shifted.
Daniel shifted Sophie higher against his chest.
“We’re going back to the compartment.”
“You can’t walk away every time this gets uncomfortable.”
“I’m carrying my daughter somewhere warm.”
“And then what?”
Daniel looked at her.
“I don’t know yet.”
That answer frightened Victoria more than anger would have.
He left.
The corridor between the private cars was narrow, carpeted, and warmer than the dining room. Sophie kept her face pressed into Daniel’s shoulder until they reached the sleeping compartment.
Daniel locked the door behind them.
The gesture was instinctive.
He regretted it immediately.
Sophie noticed locks.
She noticed voices behind walls, footsteps in hallways, adults who stopped speaking when she entered. Since her mother’s death, she had become attentive to transitions Daniel barely registered.
He sat her on the bed.
“Let’s get you warm.”
Sophie wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
“I’m not cold.”
“Your feet are freezing.”
“They’re okay.”
He found her slippers under the lower berth.
She watched him put them on her.
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t.”
Daniel sat back on his heels.
The train lurched gently around a curve.
“I know what you said.”
“That means you don’t believe me.”
He closed his eyes for a second.
There were moments in parenting when every available sentence felt like the wrong one.
“I’m trying to understand everything.”
Sophie stared at him.
“You didn’t say you believe me.”
He had spent four years learning how literal children could be when adults wished desperately for ambiguity.
He sat beside her.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
“She spilled it.”
“Victoria?”
Sophie nodded.
“On purpose?”
Another nod.
“Where were you?”
Sophie pointed toward the little table beneath the compartment window.
“I was by my chair and she told me to come over.”
“Why?”
“She said I was making a face.”
“What face?”
Sophie demonstrated by doing nothing at all.
Daniel almost smiled.
He didn’t.
“What happened next?”
“She asked why I didn’t eat the green beans.”
“You like green beans.”
“They had the little onions.”
“You don’t like the little onions.”
“I told her.”
“What did she say?”
Sophie rubbed her thumb across the seam of the blanket.
“She said I always have a reason.”
Daniel waited.
“She said Daddy is tired of reasons.”
His stomach tightened.
“Did she say those exact words?”
Sophie looked offended.
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Then she said if I was going to act like a baby, I could sit on the floor.”
Daniel looked away.
There was a small sink across from the bed. Someone had left one of his shaving kit zippers open that morning, and he found himself staring at it.
“Did you sit on the floor?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“I said you said I don’t have to sit on floors.”
He turned back.
“When did I say that?”
“At the airport.”
He remembered.
A gate agent had announced another delay. Sophie had started to sit on the terminal carpet and Daniel had said, mostly because he was tired and carrying three bags, Please don’t sit on the floor.
That had become law in Sophie’s mind.
He rubbed his face.
“Then what?”
“She got the red drink.”
“From where?”
“The little cabinet.”
Daniel pictured the service console at the end of the dining car. Glasses. Water bottles. A chilled compartment stocked by the attendant.
“Did she pour it?”
“Yes.”
“For herself?”
Sophie shook her head.
“She doesn’t like red juice.”
That was true.
Victoria disliked sweet drinks. She ordered sparkling water, black coffee, and occasionally wine, though she had stopped drinking alcohol during the wedding planning because she said it made her sleep badly.
“What did she do with it?”
“She put it by me.”
“On the table?”
“No. She held it.”
Sophie’s breathing changed.
Daniel put one hand over hers.
“You don’t have to hurry.”
“She said if I told another story she’d show me what a real mess looked like.”
Daniel’s hand stopped moving.
“And then?”
“She did it.”
Sophie looked down.
“She said you would believe her because you’re marrying her.”
Daniel heard the rails beneath them.
One-two, one-two, one-two.
Sophie picked at a loose thread on her sock.
“She said I should practice cleaning because people don’t keep girls who make trouble.”
Daniel went completely still.
“What?”
Sophie’s eyes filled.
“She said people get tired.”
“Of what?”
“Kids.”
May you like
He stood too quickly.
The train swayed, and he caught the edge of the berth.
