Chương 6
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Henry opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Claire felt a complicated flash of satisfaction.
Not because Lily was hurt.
Because somebody else had finally asked the question in a way he could not evade.
Henry looked down.
“I was going to.”
“That’s what Mom said.”
Claire coughed into her coffee.
Henry gave her a narrow look.
Lily leaned toward him.
“Before or after?”
“Before or after what?”
“You move.”
Henry was quiet.
“Before.”
“When?”
He rubbed the edge of his napkin.
“Soon.”
Lily looked unconvinced.
Henry’s face softened.
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
“I worried about the mirror.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t tell me that either.”
The sentence sat between them.
Claire watched her father receive it.
Lily returned to her pancake.
For the rest of breakfast, Henry barely joked.
At nine, several relatives decided to take the children sledding on a small hill maintained by the hotel. Lily refused to go unless Henry came.
Henry said he would watch from the bottom.
Claire said he should stay inside.
Henry glared.
“I can stand near snow without supervision.”
“You just bruised your hip.”
“I tripped in a garage.”
“You are proving my point by arguing vocabulary.”
“I don’t know what your point is anymore.”
Lily stood between them holding a red knitted hat.
“Stop.”
Both adults stopped.
Lily looked at Claire.
“Grandpa can watch.”
Then at Henry.
“No falling.”
Henry put his hand over his heart.
“I will do my best.”
Claire sighed.
They went.
The cold outside was clean and sharp. Snow squeaked under boots. Lily’s cream party dress had been replaced by purple snow pants and a puffy coat that made her move like a small astronaut.
Henry stood beside a wooden fence with both hands in his coat pockets.
Claire watched him more than she watched Lily.
He noticed.
“Stop.”
She looked at him.
“You’re doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Counting my steps.”
“I am not counting.”
“You watched me walk from the door.”
“You limp.”
“I’m cold.”
“You limped inside.”
“My shoe is annoying.”
“Your shoe was fine yesterday.”
Henry exhaled through his nose.
A sled shot past carrying Daniel’s two daughters, both screaming with laughter.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“If I move to Pine Hollow, will you stop looking at me like this?”
The question startled her.
She folded her arms tighter against the cold.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means this isn’t about the house.”
“Partly it is.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Henry looked toward the hill.
Lily was climbing up with Margaret, dragging a plastic sled behind her.
He spoke without looking at Claire.
“You started checking my mail.”
“I picked it up from the counter.”
“You asked Daniel whether I’d been driving at night.”
“You had an eye appointment.”
“You called my doctor’s office.”
“I asked how to send them updated insurance information.”
“You could have asked me.”
“I did.”
“You asked three times in one day.”
“Because you forgot twice.”
Henry’s jaw tightened.
There it was.
Claire wished she could retrieve the sentence.
Not because it was untrue.
Because of the way his face received it.
He shoved his hands deeper into his coat.
“I’m allowed to forget things.”
“I know.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Because lately every stupid thing I do becomes evidence.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“It’s exactly fair.”
Lily’s sled came down the hill.
Claire stepped toward her automatically, but Lily steered to the side and came to a crooked stop in a bank of snow.
Henry clapped.
Lily looked toward them, saw they were watching, and raised both arms.
Claire waved.
Henry waited until Lily began climbing again.
Then he said, “I’m moving because I’m tired.”
Claire turned.
He still watched the hill.
“Tired of the house?”
“Tired of being observed.”
The cold seemed to sharpen.
Henry continued.
“I leave a bill unopened, you notice. I forget milk, you notice. I don’t answer the phone for forty minutes, you notice.”
“You fell.”
“Yes.”
“You could have been hurt.”
“Yes.”
“I’m supposed to ignore that?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
He looked at her.
“Some room to be sixty-eight badly.”
Claire stared.
Henry’s expression was not angry now.
That was worse.
“I don’t know how to do this either,” she said.
His eyes shifted away.
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“Claire.”
“I’m scared.”
The words came out more sharply than she intended.
Henry turned back.
Claire swallowed.
A child nearby cried because snow had gone down the back of his coat. His father tried to remove a mitten with his teeth. The normal little chaos continued.
Claire lowered her voice.
“Mom was fine until she wasn’t.”
Henry’s face closed.
Claire immediately regretted the direction and could not stop.
“She had a headache.”
“Don’t.”
“She said it was nothing.”
“Claire.”
“And then three days later—”
“I know what happened.”
The sentence cut harder than shouting.
Claire went silent.
Henry’s eyes were wet from the cold.
Maybe only the cold.
“I was there,” he said.
She looked down.
Snow clung to the toes of her boots.
“I know.”
“No. Sometimes I don’t think you do.”
He walked away from the fence.
Not far.
Ten feet.
Enough to end the conversation without technically leaving.
Lily came down the hill again.
This time the sled spun.
Henry took one instinctive step forward.
Claire did too.
Lily tipped into soft snow and emerged laughing.
Both adults stopped.
Henry glanced at Claire.
For half a second they almost smiled.
Then he looked away.
The argument followed them inside.
Not in words.
In small decisions.
Henry held the door for everyone except Claire because someone else got there first.
Claire asked Daniel to carry a wet sled upstairs even though Henry was standing beside it.
Henry ordered lunch in his room.
Claire let him.
At one thirty, Lily appeared in Claire’s doorway wearing hotel slippers and announced that Grandpa was missing.
Claire’s stomach tightened before reason arrived.
May you like
“What?”
“He’s not in his room.”
