Chương 13
“Was justice served?”
Grace kept walking.
Nathan did too.
At the car, one reporter shouted, “What do you want people to know?”
Grace stopped.
Nathan looked at her.
She turned toward the cameras.
For one dangerous second she felt the old impulse to explain everything.
Her marriage.
The separation.
The mistake.
The fall.
The baby.
Evelyn.
She imagined strangers cutting the explanation into pieces anyway.
So Grace said, “Nothing.”
Then she got into the car.
Nathan climbed into the driver’s seat.
After pulling away, he glanced at her.
“That was dramatic.”
“It was one word.”
“Very dramatic word.”
“Shut up.”
He smiled.
Blackwood Development replaced Nathan permanently that spring.
He remained a significant shareholder but declined an offered ceremonial board role.
For several weeks he was unbearable.
He reorganized the garage.
He alphabetized spices.
He attempted to install shelves and drilled through a water line.
Grace found him standing beneath the resulting spray.
She stared.
Nathan shut off the valve.
“I had a plan.”
“I can see that.”
“Don’t.”
“You have two graduate degrees.”
“Grace.”
She laughed so hard Clara began crying in the next room.
Nathan pointed at her.
“You woke the baby.”
“You flooded the wall.”
They hired a plumber.
Nathan eventually accepted a position with a smaller development firm that specialized in converting empty commercial properties into housing.
The salary was lower.
The meetings were shorter.
He came home before dinner often enough that Grace initially suspected something was wrong.
The first Friday he arrived at five-thirty, she looked at the clock.
“Were you fired?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Apparently people leave work.”
“Voluntarily?”
“I’m told it’s common.”
He picked up Clara.
She grabbed his collar.
Nathan looked at Grace.
“I may have joined a cult.”
Grace returned part-time to architectural consulting when Clara was six months old.
Her first project was a library renovation.
The client argued about carpet colors for forty minutes.
Grace drove home afterward feeling happier than she had expected.
Ordinary frustration was underrated.
Maya found a job managing housekeeping for a boutique hotel.
The pay was slightly better.
The room with one bathroom for four people became temporary.
When Grace asked whether she missed the mansion, Maya said, “I miss the bathtub.”
Grace understood.
Mark remained in Clara’s life.
Not smoothly.
Not perfectly.
He missed one scheduled visit because of work and overcompensated by sending an expensive toy Clara could not use for another two years.
Nathan called it ridiculous.
Grace agreed.
Then Nathan spent twice as much on a stroller.
Mark noticed.
Grace refused to mediate the resulting argument.
They eventually learned to speak directly.
It took time.
At Clara’s first birthday, Mark arrived twenty minutes late carrying cupcakes.
Nathan had already bought a cake.
For several seconds both men stood in the kitchen holding dessert like rival nations.
Grace looked at them.
“If either of you makes this weird, I am throwing both cakes away.”
Mark said, “I brought cupcakes.”
“I can see that.”
Nathan muttered, “The cake is better.”
Grace pointed toward the backyard.
“Go put up balloons.”
Both went.
Maya, standing beside the refrigerator, whispered, “You’re scary now.”
Grace smiled.
“I’ve had practice.”
They never returned to live in the Blackwood mansion.
The property remained tied up in estate and financial matters for more than a year.
Eventually it was sold.
Nathan went once before the closing to collect personal items.
Grace drove with him.
She had not been inside since the fall.
They sat in the parked car.
Nathan looked at the front doors.
“You don’t have to come in.”
“I know.”
“I can be ten minutes.”
“You’ve never been ten minutes anywhere in your life.”
“Fair.”
He opened the door.
Grace said, “Wait.”
Nathan looked back.
She stared at the second-floor windows.
Her heart had already begun beating harder.
She hated that the house could still do that from fifty feet away.
“I’m coming.”
They entered together.
The foyer looked smaller.
That surprised her.
The chandelier was the same.
The marble was the same.
The balcony gate had been removed entirely after the investigation. A temporary barrier covered the opening.
Grace stopped.
Nathan watched her.
“Want to leave?”
“Not yet.”
She walked to the center of the foyer.
The exact place where they had stopped after sliding across the floor was impossible to identify.
She had expected some mark.
There was none.
A housekeeper hired by the property manager passed through carrying a cardboard box.
“Sorry,” the woman said.
Grace stepped aside.
“No problem.”
The woman continued toward the kitchen.
Nathan looked up at the balcony.
Grace did not.
Instead she noticed the front table.
A shallow wooden dish still held several old keys.
There was a pen beside it.
A grocery receipt dated months after Evelyn’s arrest.
Evidence that other people had continued moving through the rooms while the Blackwoods imagined the house frozen around their disaster.
Nathan went upstairs alone.
Grace waited near the front door.
She could have followed.
She chose not to.
Ten minutes became twenty-three.
When Nathan returned, he carried one cardboard box.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“What’s inside?”
“Dad’s watch. Some photos. Baseball cards.”
“You have baseball cards?”
“Apparently worth almost nothing.”
“Tragic.”
He smiled.
They stepped outside.
Nathan locked the door.
Then he looked at the key.
“I don’t know who gets this.”
“The realtor?”
“Probably.”
He placed it in the lockbox.
They walked to the car.
Grace did not look back.
That evening Nathan sat on Clara’s bedroom floor repairing the secondhand rocking chair Grace had bought from a neighbor.
One arm had begun squeaking.
He tightened a screw.
Tested it.
Squeak.
Tightened another.
Grace stood in the doorway.
“You’re making it worse.”
“I’m not.”
The chair squeaked again.
Nathan frowned at it.
Clara sat on the rug chewing the ear of a stuffed rabbit.
Grace crossed her arms.
“You drilled through a pipe once.”
“That was a completely different discipline.”
“Physics disagrees.”
Nathan glanced at Clara.
“Your mother doesn’t respect craftsmanship.”
Clara dropped the rabbit.
Nathan picked it up and handed it back.
She ignored the toy and reached for him instead.
He lifted her onto his lap.
Clara grabbed his nose.
Nathan made an offended sound.
Grace smiled.
He rocked the chair once.
It squeaked.
Clara laughed.
Nathan rocked again.
Another squeak.
Another laugh.
He looked at Grace.
“See?”
“You fixed nothing.”
“I improved the experience.”
Clara pressed one small hand against his chest.
Nathan bent his head and kissed her hair.
Grace watched them from the doorway.
There were still lawyers occasionally.
There were still forms.
There were still questions Clara would someday ask.
There were people who knew the worst thing Grace had ever done and people who believed things about her that had never happened.
Nathan sometimes woke angry.
Grace sometimes dreamed of falling.
Mark sometimes wanted more than Nathan was ready to give.
Nathan sometimes wanted less than Grace thought was fair.
No one became uncomplicated.
No one became clean.
Grace crossed the room and sat on the rug beside them.
Nathan shifted Clara toward her.
Grace shook her head.
“Keep her.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Clara yawned.
Nathan looked down at her.
The child’s eyes were closing.
He kept rocking despite the squeak.
Grace leaned her head against the side of the chair.
After a minute, Nathan whispered, “She’s asleep.”
Grace looked.
Clara’s fist was curled into the fabric of his shirt.
“Don’t move.”
“My leg is numb.”
“Too bad.”
“Grace.”
“She’ll wake up.”
Nathan looked down at the little hand holding him in place.
He settled back into the chair.
“Fine.”
May you like
The wood squeaked softly.
Clara slept through it.
