Chương 11
She had slept beside Volume II for three nights after finding it.
Charles said, “I was wrong about your mother.”
Nora waited.
“I was cruel to her.”
Still she said nothing.
“I cannot repair that.”
“No.”
“I know an apology to you would be inadequate.”
“It would.”
He nodded.
She realized he had probably not heard people speak to him this way in decades.
That did not make her enjoy it as much as she expected.
Charles took an envelope from his coat.
Nora tensed.
“It isn’t money,” he said.
“That’s exactly what someone says before giving money.”
Charles set the envelope on the table without pushing it toward her.
“It is a copy of another letter from Claire. Written when you were nine.”
Nora stared.
“How many are there?”
“Four that we have found.”
Her throat tightened.
“Did Julian see any?”
“No.”
“Did Adrian keep all of them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I cannot answer for him.”
“You always answered for everyone before.”
Charles absorbed that.
“Yes.”
Nora opened the envelope.
The letter inside was short.
J—
Nora asked me today whether her father would like her.
I told her yes.
I had no right to promise that for you, but I couldn’t stand the idea of her measuring herself against a man she has never met.
If you truly want no contact, I will stop asking.
But if you never received the earlier letters, then somebody has taken something from all three of us that cannot be returned.
C.
Nora read the last sentence again.
She remembered the day.
Nine years old.
Standing in their kitchen while Claire made grilled cheese.
Nora had asked whether her father knew she existed.
Claire had said, “I think so.”
Nora had asked whether he would like her.
Claire had paused with the spatula in her hand.
“Of course.”
Nora had believed her.
Now she understood why Claire had turned away immediately afterward.
Nora folded the letter.
“Can I keep this?”
Charles nodded.
“It belongs to you more than it belongs to me.”
“No,” Nora said. “It belongs to my mom.”
Charles looked at her.
Nora put the letter in her backpack.
“I’m keeping it anyway.”
A week later Adrian asked to meet Nora.
Julian said no.
Laura said no.
Thomas said it should be Nora’s decision.
Everyone got annoyed with Thomas.
Nora agreed to ten minutes.
They met in a conference room at Thomas’s firm.
Adrian looked different without the suit of authority.
He still wore an expensive dark jacket, but there was no assistant outside, no company badge clipped to his pocket, no reason for anyone in the room to obey him.
He sat across from Nora.
“You look like Julian,” he said.
Nora hated the opening.
“So do you.”
Adrian almost laughed.
He looked down at his hands.
“I’m sorry.”
Nora waited.
He continued.
“I know that doesn’t—”
“Why did you keep the letters?”
Adrian stopped.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie.”
He looked at her.
Nora folded her arms.
“You lied to Julian. Fine. Then Mom wrote again. You could have thrown the letters away.”
“Yes.”
“But you kept them.”
Adrian stared at the table.
“I thought I might fix it someday.”
Nora felt anger rise.
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
“You kept proof of what you did because you planned to become a better person later?”
His mouth twisted.
“When you say it like that.”
“How else is there to say it?”
“There isn’t.”
He rubbed his thumb against one knuckle.
“I read every letter.”
Nora’s stomach turned.
“You had no right.”
“No.”
“What did you do after you read them?”
“Usually nothing.”
“Usually?”
“When you were eight, Claire called my office.”
Nora leaned forward.
“What happened?”
“I answered.”
“What did she say?”
Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
“She asked whether Julian had received the letters.”
“And?”
“I told her yes.”
Nora stared at him.
“What else?”
“I told her he had chosen not to answer.”
Nora’s chair moved backward as she stood.
Thomas shifted but did not interfere.
Adrian looked up at her.
Nora’s face felt hot.
“My mom cried in the bathroom that year.”
Adrian swallowed.
“She thought I didn’t know.”
He said nothing.
“She missed my school concert because she said she had a migraine. I heard her crying.”
“Nora—”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
She remembered the black dress Claire had planned to wear that night.
The cheap silver earrings.
The way she had sat on the closed toilet lid with the fan running.
Nora had stood outside and gone back to her room because children knew more than adults believed and less than they needed.
“You did that.”
Adrian’s voice broke slightly.
“Yes.”
Nora wanted him to defend himself.
She wanted him to become cruel.
She wanted a reason to hate him without complication.
Instead he looked ashamed.
It was inconvenient.
“Why?” she asked.
Adrian looked toward Thomas.
Thomas said nothing.
Finally Adrian said, “Because by then I couldn’t tell Julian without telling him what I’d done.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“You kept lying because telling the truth would make you look bad?”
“Yes.”
Nora stared at him.
Thirteen years.
Four letters.
A phone call.
Birthdays.
Hospital rooms.
A school concert.
Nothing dramatic enough to justify the size of what had been lost.
Only cowardice maintained over time.
She picked up her backpack.
Adrian said, “There’s something else.”
Nora stopped.
Thomas’s eyes narrowed.
Adrian reached slowly into his jacket.
Thomas stood.
“It’s paper.”
He took out a small folded sheet.
“I found this in my home office.”
Thomas accepted it before Nora could.
He examined it.
Then handed it to her.
It was a hospital visitor form.
Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Dated nine months earlier.
Visitor: Adrian Vale.
Patient: Claire Bennett.
Nora looked at him.
“You saw her.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“September.”
“You knew she was sick.”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Adrian looked away.
“She asked me to tell Julian.”
Nora felt the room disappear around the sentence.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
May you like
“I told myself I needed time.”
Nora laughed.
