Chương 13
Daniel read the result at his office.
Then closed his laptop and attended a two-hour design review.
When he came home, Claire was on the sofa.
He handed her the printed report.
“Confirmed?”
“Yes.”
“How are you?”
“I spent the afternoon arguing about stairwell pressurization.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
Claire looked at the paper.
“Do you want to call him?”
“Not tonight.”
“Okay.”
Daniel sat beside her.
After a moment, he said, “He has high cholesterol.”
Claire looked at him.
“What?”
“He sent medical history like I requested. High cholesterol. Type 2 diabetes. His father died of an aortic aneurysm.”
“That seems useful.”
“It is.”
Daniel laughed quietly.
“Thirty-eight years of existential crisis, and I get a family history of bad arteries.”
Claire rested her head on his shoulder.
“Welcome to genetics.”
He turned the report over.
“His sons don’t know.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
He looked at her.
“Good?”
“You’re getting more comfortable saying it.”
He considered.
“I hate that you’re right.”
“I know.”
Margaret and Daniel saw each other only twice that month.
The first meeting lasted twenty minutes.
The second lasted four hours.
Neither produced reconciliation.
Margaret stopped asking for it.
That helped.
She answered questions.
When she did not know something, she said so.
When Daniel caught her softening Thomas’s behavior—“He believed he was protecting the family”—he stopped her.
“Which family?”
Margaret looked at him.
“Ours.”
“That answer is the problem.”
She nodded.
“You’re right.”
Daniel almost left.
Then Margaret said, “I keep wanting to give you reasons because reasons make me feel less guilty.”
He sat back down.
“That is at least honest.”
“I’m trying.”
“Trying would have been nice in 2004.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his forehead.
Margaret got up and made tea.
Daniel let her.
That counted for something, though neither said so.
Claire’s relationship with Margaret changed differently.
For weeks, Margaret was overly polite.
She asked before entering Claire’s kitchen.
She apologized for calling after eight.
She returned a casserole dish washed twice.
Finally Claire said, “You’re making me nervous.”
Margaret blinked.
“I’m sorry.”
“That. Stop that.”
“What would you prefer?”
Claire considered.
“I don’t know. Be annoying again.”
Margaret stared.
Then said, “Your basil is dying.”
Claire looked toward the windowsill.
“It is not.”
“It is yellow.”
“It’s August.”
“That is not how basil works.”
Claire laughed.
Margaret smiled.
The tension did not disappear.
It simply made room for something else.
The fertility clinic called the following week.
Insurance had denied part of another treatment cycle.
Claire listened to the voicemail twice, then deleted it.
Daniel found her sitting on the floor beside the bed.
He sat beside her.
She said, “I don’t want to do another round.”
He was quiet.
Claire looked at him.
“You do.”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t say that because it’s your new favorite sentence.”
He smiled faintly.
Then shook his head.
“I think I wanted to keep going because stopping felt like deciding we weren’t going to have a child.”
Claire pressed her palms together.
“And now?”
“Now I’m less interested in pretending biology is the only way a family is real.”
She looked at him.
He immediately added, “That doesn’t mean I’m ready to adopt. Jesus. That came out wrong.”
Claire laughed through sudden tears.
“Very wrong.”
“I’m saying I don’t want fear making the decision.”
“Which fear?”
“All of them.”
She leaned her head against the wall.
“I’m tired.”
“Me too.”
“I hate injections.”
“I hate giving them to you.”
“You’re terrible at it.”
“I know.”
“You hover.”
“I’m trying to be precise.”
“You hold the syringe like you’re drafting a bridge.”
“I don’t draft bridges.”
“Whatever.”
They sat on the floor until the air-conditioning kicked on.
Three months after the photograph broke, Daniel asked Rebecca to visit North Carolina.
She came alone.
Margaret knew.
Daniel did not ask permission.
Rebecca did not request to see her.
For two days, the women remained in the same city without meeting.
Then Rebecca changed her mind.
Or perhaps Daniel did.
He never explained exactly.
On Sunday afternoon, he invited Margaret to the house.
Claire considered hiding the framed photograph.
Instead she had replaced the broken glass.
Not the frame.
A thin fracture remained in one corner of the wood where it had struck the island.
Daniel had asked her not to repair that.
Rebecca arrived first.
She stood in the kitchen with a mug of coffee.
When the doorbell rang, she put the mug down too quickly and spilled some.
Claire reached for a towel.
Rebecca stopped her.
“I’ve got it.”
She wiped the counter.
Her hands shook.
Daniel opened the door.
Margaret entered.
The two women saw each other across the kitchen.
Thirty-seven years had passed since Margaret sat across the street in Columbus and drove away.
Twenty-two years since their last face-to-face meeting, which Daniel had only recently learned happened in 2004 at a diner outside Phoenix.
One year since their phone call.
Neither moved.
Finally Rebecca said, “Your hair is shorter.”
Margaret touched it.
“Yes.”
Claire looked at Daniel.
He looked back.
Of all possible opening lines, neither had expected hair.
Margaret said, “Yours too.”
Rebecca laughed nervously.
“Yes.”
Then nothing.
Daniel pulled out a chair.
“Sit down.”
They did.
He remained standing.
“I’m not doing this so everybody forgives everybody.”
Margaret nodded.
Rebecca said, “I know.”
“I’m doing it because I’m tired of carrying separate versions of the same story.”
Neither woman spoke.
Daniel picked up the repaired photograph.
“Rebecca, did you take this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her eyes went to it.
“Margaret looked terrified.”
Margaret gave a small, incredulous laugh.
“I was terrified.”
“You kept asking whether his head was supposed to be that shape.”
“It was very pointed.”
“Newborns look strange.”
“You could have mentioned that.”
Rebecca smiled.
Margaret did too.
Daniel’s face tightened.
“Don’t.”
Both women looked at him.
“Don’t make this nostalgic yet.”
The smiles disappeared.
May you like
Daniel placed the photograph on the table.
“This picture has been in my mother’s house my whole life.”
