Chương 8
A screenshot of a text to Diane from the previous winter:
I’m losing my mind lately. Don’t worry, Daniel’s handling me.
Emma read the packet in Marisol’s office.
Her stomach dropped.
“I did send that.”
“I assumed so.”
“I broke the glass too.”
“Okay.”
“I was angry.”
“Okay.”
“Doesn’t that matter?”
“It matters because it happened.”
Emma stared.
Marisol folded her hands.
“What do you think this packet proves?”
“That I’m unstable.”
“Does it?”
Emma looked again.
The answer was not as simple as she wanted.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s why lawyers don’t let frightened clients decide what a document proves five minutes after receiving it.”
Emma looked at her.
“Was that a joke?”
“Barely.”
One item in the packet bothered her more than the rest.
A text exchange between Daniel and Diane.
Daniel: She’s having one of those nights again.
Diane: Do you need me to call her?
Daniel: Better not. She gets embarrassed when too many people know.
Diane: Take care of her.
Daniel: Always.
The date was three days after Daniel had grabbed Emma by both arms and pushed her onto their bed hard enough to leave finger-shaped bruises.
Emma read it again.
Then again.
“Did my mother give him this?”
Marisol said, “I don’t know.”
Emma called Diane from the sidewalk outside.
Her mother answered on the first ring.
“Emma?”
“Did you give Daniel your texts?”
A pause.
“What?”
“His lawyer has screenshots of messages between you.”
Diane went quiet.
Emma stopped walking.
“Mom.”
“He asked me to send him some conversations in April.”
Emma’s vision narrowed.
“April.”
“He said you were considering changing doctors and that he needed examples of when your anxiety was bad.”
Emma said nothing.
Diane’s breathing changed.
“Oh, God.”
“You sent him screenshots about me.”
“I thought he was helping you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Emma—”
“What else did you send him?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
Her mother began to cry.
Emma felt no urge to comfort her.
“I need to know what you gave him.”
Diane pulled herself together.
“Messages between you and me. Maybe six or seven. One from Christmas. One when you canceled brunch. I didn’t send anything private about your medical records.”
“You sent private messages about my mental health.”
“You’re right.”
The immediate agreement made Emma angrier.
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Agreeing so fast because you think if you admit everything I can’t be mad.”
Diane was silent.
Emma sat on a concrete planter outside the office building.
People moved around her carrying lunches.
A delivery cyclist swore at a taxi.
Somewhere nearby, construction equipment beeped in reverse.
Diane finally said, “I don’t know how to talk to you now.”
“Good.”
Her mother inhaled.
“That was mean.”
“I know.”
Another silence.
Emma watched a man in a suit eat noodles from a takeout box while walking.
She said, “I need you to send Marisol everything Daniel asked you for. Every text. Every email. Don’t delete anything because you’re embarrassed.”
“I won’t.”
“And I don’t want you calling him.”
“I haven’t.”
“Or his family.”
“I haven’t.”
“Or trying to fix this.”
Diane’s voice became smaller.
“Okay.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“I have to go.”
“Emma?”
“What?”
“I love you.”
Emma opened her eyes.
She could not say it back.
“I know.”
Afterward, she sat on the planter for another ten minutes.
She bought a bottle of water from a pharmacy and forgot to drink it.
That night Claire found her trying to assemble a flat-pack bedside table in the furnished apartment she had rented for a month.
Emma had moved out of the hotel because the cost made her anxious, even after Richard offered to pay.
The apartment was small and smelled faintly of curry from the unit downstairs.
Claire stepped over three wooden panels.
“You own a screwdriver?”
“I bought one.”
“Which one?”
Emma held up a tiny tool included in the furniture box.
Claire stared.
“This is an Allen key.”
“It’s shaped like confidence.”
Claire sat on the floor.
Together they built the table backward.
They did not realize until the drawer would not close.
Emma stared at it.
Then she laughed so hard her bruised ribs hurt.
Claire lay back on the carpet.
“Excellent. We’ve defeated furniture.”
For five minutes, nothing in Emma’s life was evidence.
Then her phone rang.
Richard.
She considered not answering.
Claire pointed at the crooked table.
“I can leave you alone with your superior craftsmanship.”
Emma answered.
Her father did not greet her.
“I need to tell you something.”
She sat down.
“What?”
“Daniel called me before you came over in March.”
Emma looked at Claire.
Claire’s expression changed.
Richard continued.
“He told me you two had argued. He said you were threatening to leave for a few days because you were upset.”
Emma’s mouth went dry.
“I know he called.”
“No. You don’t know all of it.”
She waited.
Richard’s voice roughened.
“He asked me not to encourage you.”
Emma stopped breathing for a moment.
“He said what?”
“He said your therapist had warned him that running from conflict reinforced your anxiety.”
Emma closed her eyes.
“My therapist never spoke to Daniel.”
“I know that now.”
“You could’ve asked me.”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve asked literally one question.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Richard took so long answering that Emma thought the call had dropped.
Then he said, “Because I liked his explanation.”
The sentence landed harder than an excuse would have.
Emma said nothing.
“He made it simple,” Richard continued. “You were upset. He was patient. I was supposed to be the father who didn’t interfere in a marriage. It was… convenient.”
Emma looked at the backward bedside table.
“You liked him.”
“Yes.”
“More than me?”
“No.”
“That was too fast.”
Richard inhaled.
“I understood him more easily than I understood you.”
That hurt because it was true in ways she had known since childhood.
May you like
Richard liked straight lines.
Emma changed majors twice. Cried when angry. Forgot appointments and remembered people’s coffee orders. Quit law school before classes started because she knew after orientation that she had chosen it for him.
