Chương 11
“The difference is what happens next time there isn’t video.”
Sarah had no answer.
A week passed.
Then another.
Emily did not move into the house.
Richard did not move out.
The world resisted symbolic timing.
Bills came due.
Grass needed cutting.
Emily went to work.
Diane sent pictures of mail addressed to Emily.
Sarah stopped posting online.
Noah texted once every few days, usually about practical things.
Brooke says nobody she knows saved the clip.
Then:
Sarah asked me to tell people she was having a panic attack when it happened. I said no.
And later:
This is unrelated, but do you know a good physical therapist? My shoulder is making a weird clicking sound.
Emily gave him the clinic number.
He replied:
Romance is alive.
She stared at the message.
Then laughed.
She did not know whether he was flirting.
She decided not to ask.
Three weeks after the party, Diane came to Emily’s apartment.
She brought the yellow mug.
Or what remained of it.
Richard had glued the handle back on.
“You cannot drink from this,” Emily said.
“I know.”
“Why did you bring it?”
“Your father fixed it.”
“That is an unsafe repair.”
“I know.”
Emily set the mug on the counter.
Diane looked around the apartment.
She had been there before but always found something new to comment on.
This time it was the plant near the window.
“That thing is dying.”
“It’s dramatic.”
“It’s brown.”
“It’s resting.”
Diane touched one leaf.
It fell off.
Emily said, “You frightened it.”
Her mother smiled.
Then she sat on the sofa.
“I’m leaving your father.”
Emily froze.
“For how long?”
Diane looked surprised.
“I said leaving, not taking a vacation.”
“I know. I just—”
“You assumed temporary.”
“Yes.”
“So did he.”
Emily sat opposite her.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“That’s usually not why people leave.”
Diane folded her hands.
“Something happened years ago. Then something else happened. Then a hundred small things. Your party—Sarah’s party, I mean—didn’t cause it.”
Emily waited.
“It clarified it.”
“How?”
Diane looked toward the window.
“When Richard told you to leave, I agreed with him.”
Emily said nothing.
“I stood there and watched my husband throw our daughter out, and I was thinking, Please don’t make this worse.”
Her voice broke slightly.
“I wasn’t thinking, Is she telling the truth? I wasn’t thinking, We should slow down. I was thinking, How do I keep Richard from getting angrier?”
Emily looked down.
“That’s not a marriage I want to keep practicing.”
“Mom.”
“I love him.”
“I know.”
“That’s not enough anymore.”
Emily sat beside her.
Diane leaned her head briefly against Emily’s shoulder.
Then she straightened and wiped beneath her eyes.
“Do not tell him I cried.”
“He has probably seen you cry.”
“Not recently.”
“Why?”
“Waterproof mascara.”
Emily laughed.
Diane did too.
Then she said, “I’m going to stay with Linda.”
Emily stared.
“After everything?”
“She has a guest room.”
“Mom.”
“She also feels terrible.”
“She searched my bag.”
“Yes.”
“She called Aunt Carol.”
“Yes.”
“She practically convicted me before Dad had time to finish yelling.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re moving in with her.”
Diane sighed.
“We contain multitudes.”
Emily groaned.
“Do not quote poetry at me.”
“That wasn’t poetry.”
“Close enough.”
Diane stayed with Linda.
Richard was furious.
Then he was humiliated that he was furious.
He called Emily less often.
When he did, he discussed property.
He wanted to buy the house from her.
The offer was far below market value.
Emily told him so.
“I’m factoring my investment.”
“You already used your investment to reduce the price by almost two hundred thousand.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not how buying works.”
“It’s how family works.”
“That sentence has become threatening.”
He sighed.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve had a month.”
“I know.”
“I need to know whether I’m moving.”
“I know.”
“I cannot live indefinitely under this.”
Emily closed her eyes.
He was right.
Her indecision had become a decision that affected him.
That was uncomfortable because it made him a victim of uncertainty she controlled.
She met with Mr. Keller again.
“I don’t want to punish him.”
“Good.”
“I also don’t want to give him the house because I’m afraid of looking punitive.”
“Also good.”
“What if Grandma was wrong?”
“About?”
“Me.”
Mr. Keller looked up from his notes.
“What if she gave it to me because she thought I could handle this, and I can’t?”
“Then you will handle it badly.”
Emily frowned.
“That’s your advice?”
“It is one possibility.”
“That’s terrible.”
“You seem to think competence means never making a painful decision.”
“I think competence means knowing the right decision.”
“No.”
He removed his glasses.
“Competence often means making the least dishonest decision available and accepting the cost.”
Emily stared at him.
“You rehearsed that.”
“I bill families. I have material.”
She laughed.
Then she asked, “What would you do?”
“I am not your grandmother.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It is the answer.”
Emily left annoyed.
She spent Saturday at the house alone.
Richard had gone to inspect a job site.
Sarah was staying with a friend.
Diane still lived with Linda.
Emily walked through every room.
Not as an owner.
As a person trying to understand what ownership meant.
The kitchen cabinets Richard had paid for were better than the originals.
The windows he replaced no longer leaked cold air in winter.
The upstairs bathroom still had a dent in the wall from the time Sarah slipped carrying a laundry basket at fourteen.
Emily’s height marks remained inside the pantry door, though the newest paint color had covered half of them.
Eleanor had once threatened to sue Richard for painting over those marks.
He had spent an entire evening scraping paint away with a razor blade.
Emily found the old family photographs stacked in a closet after Linda’s party decorating.
One showed Richard at thirty-eight, standing on the roof with a hammer.
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Another showed Diane holding baby Sarah.
Another showed Emily at sixteen making a face at the camera while Eleanor pointed at her with a wooden spoon.
