Chương 6
“I didn’t trust her.”
“You didn’t like Rachel at first either.”
“That is not true.”
“You called Rachel ‘aggressively Californian.’”
“She put kale in lasagna.”
“That is not a moral failing.”
“It should be.”
Despite himself, Daniel laughed.
Susan did too.
One short, terrible laugh.
Then she covered her face.
“Oh, God.”
Daniel hugged her.
She cried against his shoulder for less than a minute.
Then she stepped away, embarrassed.
“What happens now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is Victoria coming here?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Mom.”
“I have a shovel.”
“Please don’t say things like that.”
“I also have poor upper-body strength. It was not a serious threat.”
Daniel sat at the table.
Susan made coffee.
He told her everything he knew.
Then Elena told them more.
Not all at once.
That became impossible.
Each remembered incident changed the meaning of the others.
Victoria had never done anything dramatic until the inhaler.
That was part of how the pattern had survived.
She corrected.
She controlled.
She reframed.
She made Lily repeat apologies until they sounded sincere enough.
She changed small rules without telling Daniel.
She insisted Elena leave rooms during discipline because “Lily performs for an audience.”
She became affectionate afterward.
Sometimes genuinely.
She bought Lily art supplies, sat beside her during school projects, learned to braid hair badly but persistently.
She took her to a Taylor Swift concert and wore earplugs the entire time.
She once stayed awake all night during a stomach virus, changing sheets and rubbing Lily’s back.
“She loved her,” Susan said.
Elena looked at her.
Susan corrected herself.
“Or thought she did.”
Daniel stared into his coffee.
That was worse than if Victoria had been a monster.
Monsters were easy.
Victoria was a woman who had warmed towels in the dryer because Lily hated getting out of the bath cold.
A woman who had also made a seven-year-old run stairs to prove she could breathe.
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
A text from Victoria.
I need clothes and my laptop. I will come by at noon with Claire.
Martin had told him not to respond.
Daniel read it three times.
Then another arrived.
Please don’t make this uglier than it already is.
He handed the phone to Martin.
Martin read it.
“Do nothing.”
“She thinks I’m making it ugly.”
“She’s scared.”
“Good.”
“Don’t enjoy that.”
Daniel looked at him.
Martin put the phone down.
“I mean it. Enjoying her fear will make you stupid.”
“I don’t enjoy it.”
“Yes, you do.”
Daniel stood.
“I’m going upstairs.”
“To do what?”
“Anything that doesn’t involve talking to you.”
At noon, Victoria came to the house.
Daniel was not there.
Martin had insisted.
Susan called it cowardice.
Elena called it wise.
Daniel took Lily to a bookstore.
She spent twenty-two minutes deciding between two nearly identical sets of colored markers.
Normally he would have become impatient after five.
That day he stood beside her and examined marker tips as if his life depended on it.
“Brush tips are better,” Lily said.
“For?”
“Everything.”
“Then why do they sell the other kind?”
She looked at him with pity.
“People make mistakes.”
Daniel laughed.
A woman across the aisle glanced over.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He ignored it.
Lily chose the brush tips.
At checkout she asked for a book about a girl who solved mysteries with a dog.
Daniel bought that too.
Outside, they sat on a bench.
Lily swung her legs.
“Is Victoria going to jail?”
Daniel looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
“Grandma said maybe.”
“Grandma says things.”
“She said prison once.”
Daniel rubbed his eyes.
“I’m going to talk to Grandma.”
“Is prison different?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He considered lying.
Instead he said, “Jail is usually shorter or while people are waiting for court. Prison is for longer sentences.”
Lily nodded.
“Is Victoria bad?”
There were questions adults spent years avoiding because children asked them in six words.
Daniel looked toward the parking lot.
A woman struggled to fold a stroller while her toddler licked the side of a shopping cart.
“I think Victoria did something very bad.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
Lily waited.
Daniel rubbed his thumb against the edge of the bookstore receipt.
“She is a person who can be kind and still do something dangerous.”
Lily frowned.
“So is she bad?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“She says people who lie are bad.”
Daniel looked at her.
“People lie for lots of reasons.”
“Do you lie?”
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“When?”
“Sometimes I tell Grandma I like her meatloaf.”
Lily smiled.
Then the smile disappeared.
“Did you know Victoria was mean to me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I wasn’t paying enough attention.”
She looked at her new markers.
“I told you once.”
Daniel’s stomach dropped.
“When?”
“In the car.”
“What did you say?”
“I said Victoria gets mad when you leave.”
Daniel searched his memory.
There were too many car rides.
Then one returned.
Lily in the back seat after soccer.
Mud on her socks.
Daniel answering work messages at a red light.
Her voice: Victoria gets mad when you leave.
His answer: She gets stressed because there’s a lot to manage. Help her out, okay?
He closed his eyes.
“I remember.”
Lily said nothing.
“I’m sorry.”
“You were texting.”
“I know.”
“My coach says no phones in the car.”
“Your coach is smarter than me.”
“She’s twenty-six.”
“That doesn’t help my case.”
Lily leaned against him.
He put an arm around her.
His phone buzzed again.
He did not look.
When they returned to Susan’s house, Martin was waiting.
Victoria had taken clothes, toiletries, personal papers, and two laptops.
She had also taken a locked document box from Daniel’s study.
Daniel frowned.
“What document box?”
“Small black fireproof case.”
“That’s mine.”
“Was.”
“Martin.”
“I told her she couldn’t take it. She claimed it contained joint financial records and personal documents. Her attorney said they would inventory it.”
Daniel pulled out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling her.”
May you like
“No.”
“She stole from me.”
