Chương 12
By evening, the apartment had begun to look less like a hotel room.
His photographs went on shelves.
The yellow bowl went in a cabinet.
Evelyn’s hand mirror went into the top drawer of his dresser.
The pinecones remained on the floor because Henry refused to assign them furniture.
Lily became tired and irritable.
When Claire said it was time to go, she immediately refused.
“We have school Monday.”
“No.”
“That was not a question.”
“I sleep here.”
Henry looked alarmed.
“Absolutely not. I don’t own cereal yet.”
“I eat toast.”
“I don’t own bread.”
“Mom has.”
Claire crossed her arms.
“Nice try.”
Lily’s face tightened.
Claire braced for a tantrum.
Instead Lily went quiet.
She looked around the apartment.
Then at Henry.
“You stay here?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
Henry glanced at Claire.
“Tonight, yes.”
Lily looked toward the hallway.
“Are you scared?”
Henry considered.
“A little.”
Claire looked at him.
Lily seemed surprised.
“Why?”
“New place.”
“Old people get scared?”
Henry smiled.
“Especially old people.”
Lily climbed onto his lap.
Henry winced so slightly Claire almost missed it.
She said nothing.
Lily rested her head against his chest.
“You can come our house.”
“I know.”
“Tonight.”
“I’m staying here tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t, it won’t start feeling like home.”
Lily frowned at the logic.
Henry smoothed her curls.
“You’ll come Tuesday.”
“That’s forever.”
“It’s two sleeps.”
“Three.”
“Saturday to Tuesday is three?”
Lily counted on her fingers.
Henry waited.
She gave up.
“Too many.”
“I’ll call tomorrow.”
“Video?”
“Yes.”
“You have to answer.”
“If I can.”
Her face changed.
Henry corrected.
“I’ll answer.”
Claire noticed.
So did Lily.
When they finally left, Lily cried in the elevator.
Not loudly.
She pressed her face into Claire’s coat and tried to hide it.
Claire did not tell her everything was fine.
She had started learning.
In the parking lot, Lily looked back at Henry’s building.
A light was on in his third-floor window.
“Can he see us?”
“Probably not.”
Lily waved anyway.
Claire waved too.
Upstairs, Henry stood behind the glass and watched them go.
He did not wave until their car had already turned.
The first weeks at Pine Hollow were uneven.
Henry complained about the coffee.
He complained about the parking spaces.
He complained that a man named Frank kept trying to recruit him into a woodworking group.
Then Claire discovered he had attended the woodworking group twice.
“You joined.”
“I visited.”
“You made a birdhouse.”
“It was scrap wood.”
“You joined.”
“I reject your terminology.”
Lily visited every Tuesday and most Saturdays.
She learned the path from the family entrance to Henry’s building.
Seven hundred feet.
She stopped calling it far.
Henry did not become magically safer.
He left his phone in the apartment once while walking outside.
Claire called three times.
When he returned, he found her car in the parking lot.
They argued.
He apologized halfway.
She apologized badly.
Neither enjoyed it.
He also began telling her things before she asked.
A doctor appointment.
A sore knee.
A plan to drive to Margaret’s house.
Not every detail.
Enough.
Claire practiced not turning information into investigation.
Sometimes she failed.
Their relationship changed by inches.
Lily’s mirror fear lasted longer than anyone expected.
At home she passed mirrors without concern.
At school she used the bathroom mirrors.
The fear belonged mostly to large freestanding ones.
Hotel mirrors.
Antique mirrors.
Mirrors with space behind them.
Claire learned this during a furniture store visit when Lily refused to enter an aisle containing three full-length mirrors leaned against a display wall.
Claire almost explained again.
Then she stopped.
“You want to go around?”
Lily nodded.
They went around.
Henry heard about it later.
His face fell.
“I did that.”
“You started it.”
“I thought she’d forget.”
“She probably will.”
“When?”
Claire smiled.
“You really hate not controlling timelines.”
Henry looked offended.
“I am extremely flexible.”
“You moved buildings to avoid spontaneous visits.”
“That was good planning.”
Spring came.
The snow disappeared from Pine Hollow’s walking path.
Henry bought two balcony chairs.
One was too small for him and exactly right for Lily.
He denied this was intentional.
She kept pinecones in a row along the railing.
In April, he picked Lily up from preschool for the first time since moving.
Claire had worried.
She had checked whether his name remained on the authorized pickup list.
She had reminded him twice about the time.
Then she caught herself and deleted the third reminder.
At three twenty, Henry sent a photograph.
Lily in the back seat holding a paper crown.
No message.
Claire stared at the picture.
Then put down her phone.
That evening, Henry told her he had taken the wrong turn leaving the school.
Claire’s stomach tightened.
He saw it.
“I corrected.”
“Okay.”
“I was distracted because she was singing.”
“Okay.”
“You’re doing something with your face.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Claire exhaled.
“I’m trying.”
“So am I.”
That became, without formal agreement, the closest thing they had to a rule.
Trying counted.
In May, the family returned to the mountain hotel.
Not for the winter gala.
Margaret had organized a smaller weekend because she found discounted rooms and considered unused discounts a personal insult.
Claire nearly declined.
Lily wanted to go.
Henry wanted to go.
So they went.
The ballroom was closed for a wedding.
The family ate dinner in the hotel restaurant instead.
Afterward, Lily wandered through the lobby holding Henry’s hand.
Claire walked several steps behind them.
She saw the mirror first.
The enormous antique mirror had been returned to its usual place outside the ballroom corridor.
Same carved frame.
Same dark wood.
Same impossible height.
Claire stopped.
Lily continued three steps before seeing it.
She froze.
Henry felt her hand tighten.
He looked toward the mirror.
Claire watched from behind.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Hotel guests passed them.
May you like
A woman rolled a suitcase toward the elevators. Two teenagers argued about a charger. Somewhere in the bar, somebody laughed too loudly.
Lily looked up at Henry.
