Chương 12
Reality offered no satisfying number.
Luis stayed.
Darren left for another contractor and, to Ethan’s surprise, called two weeks later to say there were no hard feelings.
“There are definitely hard feelings,” Ethan said.
Darren laughed.
“Okay. Medium feelings.”
Ethan appreciated that more than an apology.
Claire returned to work slowly.
For the first month she could not open the kitchen drawer where Margaret had kept extra batteries, rubber bands and a spare bottle opener she always complained Ethan misplaced.
Nothing had happened at that drawer.
That did not matter.
Margaret had stood beside it while Ryan held Claire’s wrists.
So Claire avoided it.
One morning Ethan found her staring at the handle.
He started toward her.
Then stopped.
Claire opened the drawer herself.
She took out a battery.
Closed it.
“That was stupid,” she said.
“No.”
“I know it wasn’t. It felt stupid.”
Ethan nodded.
She looked at him.
“You’re getting better at this.”
“At what?”
“Not giving me the correct answer before I finish having the wrong feeling.”
He smiled.
“Put it on my résumé.”
Owen’s recovery was less visible.
He went back to school.
He played soccer.
He complained about vegetables with normal six-year-old outrage.
He also began checking the front-door lock before bed.
Once.
Then twice.
Sometimes three times.
Ethan let it go for several weeks.
Finally, one night, he crouched beside him.
“You want me to check?”
Owen shook his head.
“I already did.”
“Then why are you checking again?”
Owen’s hand stayed on the deadbolt.
“Just because.”
Ethan nodded.
“Okay.”
He stood.
Owen checked it once more.
The next night, Ethan asked Owen to help him replace the loose screws in the strike plate.
They removed the old ones and installed longer screws.
Ethan explained what each piece did.
Owen held the flashlight badly, shining it into Ethan’s eyes half the time.
When they finished, Ethan locked the door once.
“Your turn.”
Owen unlocked it.
Locked it.
Pulled the handle.
“Good?”
Owen considered.
“Good.”
He checked it again anyway.
But only once.
Ryan’s criminal case moved slowly.
That was perhaps the most ordinary cruelty of the whole experience.
Weeks passed.
Then months.
There were hearings Ethan did not attend.
Lawyers exchanged filings.
The prosecution requested records.
Ryan’s attorney challenged parts of Claire’s account and emphasized the scratch on his neck.
Claire learned about this from the prosecutor’s office and spent an evening furious at herself for scratching him.
“I should’ve just let him take the phone.”
Ethan looked up from the dishwasher.
“No.”
“There would be no mark on him.”
“He still would’ve hit you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You told me he already pushed you the day before.”
Claire shoved a plate into the rack too hard.
“I know what happened.”
“Then why are you arguing his version?”
“Because somebody has to.”
He stared.
She closed the dishwasher.
“I hate that he gets to point at one thing I did and make it sound like the room started there.”
Ethan dried his hands.
“Is that what the prosecutor said?”
“No.”
“Then who said it?”
“Nobody.”
He waited.
Claire leaned against the counter.
“Me.”
Ethan did not give her the correct sentence.
He stood beside her.
After a minute she said, “You can say something.”
“I’m afraid of doing it wrong.”
That made her laugh.
“You’re annoying.”
“I know.”
She put her head against his shoulder.
It was one of the first times since the assault she initiated contact without thinking about it.
Ethan did not move.
He simply breathed.
Margaret sent Owen a birthday card in October.
No message beyond:
I love you always. Grandma.
Claire found it in the mailbox.
She left it unopened on the table.
When Ethan came home, they looked at it for a long time.
“Do we give it to him?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“She’s allowed to mail him?”
“As far as I know.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
Claire touched the envelope.
“I know.”
They argued.
Quietly at first.
Then not quietly.
Ethan felt that withholding the card made them responsible for controlling Owen’s relationship with his grandmother.
Claire felt that giving it to him forced a relationship he did not currently ask for and reopened something he could not understand.
“You miss her,” Claire said.
“That doesn’t mean—”
“You do.”
“So do you.”
“Not enough to hand her access to him.”
“It’s a card.”
“It’s never a card with your family.”
He stepped back as if she had pushed him.
“That’s cheap.”
“It’s true.”
“No. It’s the kind of thing you say when you want every argument to include my entire childhood.”
Claire stared.
Ethan regretted the sentence immediately.
Not because it was entirely false.
Because it was partly true.
Claire folded her arms.
“Fine.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Do that.”
“Do what?”
“End the conversation because I said something mean.”
“You didn’t say something mean. You said what you think.”
“I said it badly.”
“Yes.”
He waited.
Claire picked up the card.
Then put it down.
“I don’t know what the right thing is.”
“Neither do I.”
She looked at him.
Their old arguments depended on one of them claiming certainty.
Without it, there was nowhere familiar to go.
So they sat at the table.
Eventually Claire said, “Ask Owen if he wants mail from Grandma without showing him the card.”
Ethan thought about it.
“That seems fair.”
Owen said no.
Not dramatically.
He was coloring a picture of a shark.
“Not yet.”
Ethan asked, “You sure?”
Claire kicked him lightly under the table.
He stopped.
“Okay.”
They put the card in a kitchen drawer.
Not the drawer Claire avoided.
Another one.
In November, Ryan asked through his attorney whether Ethan would meet privately.
Ethan said no.
Then he changed his mind.
Claire did not like it.
“You don’t owe him that.”
“I know.”
“He’s going to explain.”
“I know.”
“He’s going to make you feel sorry for him.”
“Probably.”
She stared at him.
“And you still want to go.”
“Yes.”
May you like
“Why?”
Ethan took longer than he expected to answer.
