Chương 13
“Do you miss him?” Natalie asked.
Emily looked out her apartment window at traffic moving along the river.
“Yes.”
The answer felt embarrassing.
Natalie did not offer reassurance. “Me too.”
In October, Emily returned to full-time work, though full-time had changed. She left by six twice a week. She delegated supplier calls. She stopped reviewing every bid herself. The first month, she corrected Marcus so often that he finally placed a wooden box on her desk labeled THINGS EMILY CAN LET OTHER PEOPLE DO.
She filled it with nothing.
He began filling it for her.
One morning, she found a broken drawer slide inside.
“What is this?” she asked.
“The kitchen drawer in your apartment.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Natalie complained.”
“It’s been broken for years.”
“Exactly.”
The drawer had become one of those small inconveniences Emily maintained out of habit. She knew how to lift and pull at the same time. Fixing it seemed less urgent than every other thing.
Marcus gave her a replacement slide. “Do it yourself or hire someone.”
“You own tools.”
“So do you.”
That evening, Emily sat on her kitchen floor with a screwdriver, the drawer upside down beside her. Halfway through, she realized she had installed the slide backward.
She laughed until the incision hurt.
Then she cried, not because of the drawer, but because she wanted to call Richard and ask which screw she had misplaced.
She did not call.
She left the pieces on the floor overnight.
The next day, Daniel came for dinner carrying takeout and found the kitchen blocked.
“You appear to have lost a legal dispute with cabinetry,” he said.
“Privilege applies.”
“To the drawer?”
“To dinner.”
He took off his jacket, rolled his sleeves, and examined the hardware. Daniel had no practical skills. He read the instructions twice, attached the slide to the wrong side, and accused the manufacturer of ambiguity.
Emily sat against the cabinet and watched him.
“You can bill me,” she said.
“I’m already billing you.”
“For this?”
“I’m considering a new practice area.”
They eventually fixed the drawer. It opened smoothly and felt wrong.
Emily pushed it closed, then opened it again.
Daniel sat on the floor across from her. “Your father called my office.”
Her hand stopped on the drawer pull.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“What did he want?”
“To ask whether contacting you on your birthday would violate the settlement.”
“It wouldn’t.”
“I told him that.”
“My birthday is next month.”
“He knows.”
Emily looked at Daniel. “Why tell me?”
“Because I said I would stop deciding which information you could handle.”
She nodded.
They ate noodles from cardboard containers at the kitchen island. Daniel talked about a landlord dispute involving a dentist and an illegal fish tank. Emily talked about a Northbridge change order that used the phrase quiet luxury nine times.
Neither mentioned Richard again.
On Emily’s thirtieth birthday, a card arrived at the office.
The envelope contained no money, no legal language, and no explanation. Richard had written:
I am sorry I taught myself to hear your silence as proof you were fine.
Happy birthday.
Dad
Emily read it in the morning and placed it inside her desk drawer.
At noon, she moved it to the trash.
At three, she removed it from the trash and put it back in the drawer.
At six, she took it home.
She did not call him.
Winter came early. The river froze at the edges, and salt whitened the sidewalks. Carter Millwork completed the first phase of Northbridge’s hotel renovation on schedule. Marcus became chief operating officer. Diane received authority to stop any transfer she considered suspicious, including Emily’s.
Natalie’s divorce moved toward settlement. She returned to teaching full-time at a middle school and discovered she was good at persuading twelve-year-olds to care about shading. She paid the first installment of her company debt before it was due.
Richard sold the family house in January.
He sent both daughters an email asking whether they wanted anything before the estate sale.
Natalie claimed Susan’s recipe box, a bedroom lamp, and the dented metal stool from the garage. Emily did not reply.
Two days before the sale, she drove to the house without telling anyone.
Snow had been pushed into gray piles along the curb. The front porch light was on though it was noon. Richard’s truck sat in the driveway with a FOR SALE sign reflected across its windshield.
Emily remained in her car for several minutes.
Then Richard opened the garage door.
He had seen her.
He did not wave. He stood inside the garage wearing a brown jacket and work gloves, waiting.
Emily got out.
The cold tightened the scar beneath her coat. She walked carefully up the driveway. Richard looked thinner. His hair had been cut short, which made his face appear more exposed.
“I didn’t know if you’d come,” he said.
“I didn’t either.”
The garage was half empty. Tools had been sorted into boxes. Pale rectangles marked the walls where cabinets once hung.
The old workbench remained.
Richard removed his gloves and placed them on it.
“I kept Mom’s office things in the basement,” he said. “Ledgers. Drawings. The adding machine, though I don’t know why anyone would want it.”
“I do.”
He nodded.
They went downstairs.
The basement smelled of concrete and cardboard. Richard had arranged Susan’s belongings on a folding table. Her blueprints were rolled and tied. The adding machine sat beneath a dish towel. A chipped mug held pencils hardened with age.
Emily picked up the mug.
“I used to steal these,” she said.
“I know.”
“You blamed Natalie.”
“I knew she’d confess to anything if I offered ice cream.”
Emily looked at him.
“That isn’t funny now,” he said.
“It wasn’t very funny then.”
“No.”
She wrapped the mug in newspaper.
Richard stood several feet away, careful not to crowd her. “The cardigan looked good on you at the hearing.”
“You watched?”
“Your camera was on.”
“I know.”
May you like
“I almost didn’t withdraw.”
“Why did you?”
