Chương 2
Margaret’s expression changed at last.
It was small, but Michael saw it—the first crack in the certainty she had carried into the room.
He looked around at the relatives standing in a half-circle, every one of them watching an eight-year-old absorb a secret that had just been detonated over dessert.
“What the hell are we doing?”
No one answered.
Michael crouched again.
“Em.”
She was staring at Daniel.
“Emma.”
Her eyes shifted toward him.
“Come upstairs with me.”
“I want Mom.”
Claire took a step.
Emma recoiled.
It was barely three inches.
Claire stopped as if struck again.
Michael felt something ugly flare in him at the sight, and he hated himself for the satisfaction mixed into it.
He held out his hand.
Emma looked at it, then placed the locket back inside Margaret’s red box.
“No,” she said.
Everyone waited.
Emma took the locket out again.
“I want this.”
Margaret nodded.
“Okay.”
Emma slid her hand into Michael’s.
He led her from the room.
Behind them, the fire cracked, Sophie began crying quietly, and Claire said, “Michael, please,” but he did not turn around.
The staircase curved along the stone wall to the second floor. Emma climbed three steps, stopped, and kicked off one shoe. It tumbled down two stairs.
Under any other circumstances Michael would have told her to pick it up.
Instead he bent, retrieved it, and carried it by the strap.
She removed the other one at the landing.
“My feet hurt.”
“I know.”
“That’s why I wanted the blue dress.”
“I know.”
“Mom said this one looked nicer in pictures.”
Michael stared at the shoe in his hand.
He understood what she was doing because he was doing it too. If they talked about shoes, they did not have to talk about fathers.
“Blue one had pockets,” he said.
Emma nodded with grave approval.
“Exactly.”
He opened the door to the room she was sharing with Sophie.
Two twin beds stood beneath quilts covered in pine trees. Emma’s suitcase lay open on the bench beneath the window, one sock hanging over the edge. Snow pressed white against the glass outside. Wind hummed faintly along the frame.
Emma sat on the nearer bed.
Michael put both shoes on the floor.
She turned the locket over in her hand.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“You swear?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him sharply.
“Like real swear?”
“Real swear.”
Her shoulders lowered perhaps half an inch.
“Is Grandma lying?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Mom knows.”
He sat in the wooden chair beside the bed.
“I think your mom knows something she should have told us.”
“Us?”
“You and me. Maybe Daniel too.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Emma picked at the locket clasp with one fingernail.
Michael wanted to take it from her and throw it into the snow.
Instead he said, “Careful. It’s old.”
She stared at him.
“Grandma hit Mom.”
“Yes.”
“That was bad.”
“Yes.”
“Even if Mom lied?”
“Yes.”
Emma considered this.
“Are you mad at Grandma?”
“Very.”
“Are you mad at Mom?”
Michael rubbed his palms together.
The truthful answer was too large for the room.
“Yes.”
Emma nodded as though she had expected nothing else.
“Are you mad at me?”
His hands stopped.
“What?”
“If Daniel is my real dad.”
Michael leaned forward.
“No.”
“But if I’m his, then—”
“No.”
The sharpness of his voice made her blink.
He softened it.
“No. You did not do anything.”
She looked at the locket again.
Downstairs, someone moved a chair. A glass clinked. The sounds carried up through the open center of the lodge in tiny domestic fragments that felt obscene in their normality.
Emma whispered, “Then are you fake?”
Michael’s throat closed.
He looked down at his wedding ring, then at the small scar across his left thumb from the summer Emma had been four and he had tried to slice a watermelon while she repeatedly asked whether seeds could grow in her stomach.
“No,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I changed about nine thousand diapers.”
She almost smiled.
“Mom changed more.”
“Okay, that’s probably true.”
“And you hate gross stuff.”
“I do.”
“You gagged when I threw up on the boat.”
“That was a lot of throw-up.”
She gave a tiny breath that might have been a laugh.
Then her face folded again, not into tears, but into confusion.
“Can two people be my dad?”
Michael looked toward the window.
“I think families can be complicated.”
“That means yes?”
“It means I’m not going to make you figure it out tonight.”
“Are you going to leave?”
He looked at her so quickly that his neck hurt.
She had not asked whether Daniel would stay.
She had asked whether Michael would go.
“No,” he said.
He nearly added never.
He stopped himself.
“I’m not leaving you tonight.”
Her mouth trembled.
“What about tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“And after tomorrow?”
Michael stood, crossed the narrow space, and sat beside her.
“I’m your dad,” he said. “Whatever else we learn, that part doesn’t disappear because somebody opened a box.”
She leaned against him.
Only then did she begin to cry.
Not loudly. Emma never cried loudly unless she was physically hurt. Her shoulders shook against his ribs while she pressed her face into his blazer. Michael put his arms around her and stared at the pine-tree quilt until the little green shapes blurred.
Five minutes later, Renee knocked.
“Michael?”
“Not now.”
“It’s me.”
“I know who you are.”
A pause.
“Claire asked me to tell you she’s staying downstairs.”
He closed his eyes.
“Good.”
“And Margaret wants to—”
“No.”
Another pause.
“Okay.”
Renee’s footsteps retreated.
Emma sniffed.
“Who’s Margaret?”
“Grandma.”
“You called her Margaret.”
Michael looked down at her.
“I did.”
“You only do that when you’re mad.”
“Apparently you’ve been collecting evidence.”
She wiped her face on his blazer.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“You hate when people do that.”
May you like
“I’m reevaluating a lot tonight.”
She did not know what reevaluating meant. He could tell because she nodded too quickly.
