Chương 4
“No.”
Lauren turned.
“The house goes to her son.”
“The house goes into a structure that gives Noah security.”
“Why?”
Robert looked toward the den.
He lowered his voice.
“Because his life has been unstable for two years.”
“Whose fault is that?”
Emma pushed away from the counter.
“Careful.”
Lauren looked directly at her.
“You married Daniel.”
“And?”
“You stayed after the drinking started.”
Helen closed her eyes.
Emma’s heart began to pound.
Lauren saw it and kept going.
“You covered for him. Mom did too. Everybody did. Then he disappeared on Noah, and somehow the answer is to hand Noah a house?”
“The answer,” Robert said, “is that Noah never again wonders whether he has a place to live because an adult around him can’t get his act together.”
Emma stared at her father.
She had known he wanted to protect Noah.
She had not known he had phrased the fear so plainly to himself.
Lauren shook her head.
“You’re rewarding chaos.”
Robert’s face reddened.
“I am protecting a child from it.”
“And what about Chloe?”
The name stopped him.
Lauren’s daughter was eleven.
She was spending the weekend with her father and had missed the birthday party because of a soccer tournament.
Helen sat down.
“Chloe has a home,” she said.
Lauren laughed.
“So does Noah.”
“Right now.”
“So this is about Daniel?”
“It’s about what we decided to do.”
“No. You don’t get to hide behind estate-planning language after you made one grandchild the sole beneficiary of the most valuable thing you own.”
Robert rubbed his forehead.
“The trust does not mean we love Chloe less.”
Lauren’s eyes filled, though she did not cry.
“That sentence is so insulting I don’t know what to do with it.”
Emma watched her sister.
For the first time that evening, Lauren did not look cruel.
She looked hurt.
It did not excuse what she had done.
It complicated it.
Those were not the same thing.
Noah’s truck bumped against the kitchen doorway.
All four adults turned.
He stood behind it.
“How much is the house?”
Emma closed her eyes.
“Noah.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Aunt Lauren does.”
Lauren looked away.
Noah picked up the truck.
“Is it a lot?”
Robert said, “Enough that adults should know better than to discuss it in front of you.”
Noah considered his grandfather.
“That didn’t answer.”
Robert’s mouth twitched.
“No, it didn’t.”
Noah looked at Lauren.
“Do you want the house?”
Lauren crouched slightly, then seemed to realize that pretending gentleness now might be worse than honesty.
“I thought one day part of it would belong to me.”
“Why?”
“Because Grandpa and Grandma are my parents.”
Noah’s forehead wrinkled.
“So?”
Lauren glanced at Emma.
“People sometimes leave things to their children.”
“Like when they die?”
Helen made a quiet sound.
Robert answered.
“Yes.”
Noah looked horrified.
“I don’t want the house if they have to die.”
Nobody spoke.
He tightened his grip on the monster truck.
“You can have it.”
Lauren closed her eyes.
Emma moved immediately.
“Noah, sweetheart, none of this is your job.”
“I don’t care.”
“I know.”
“He can have my house.”
“She.”
“What?”
“Aunt Lauren.”
Noah frowned.
“She can have my house.”
Lauren covered her mouth with one hand.
It was the first gesture that looked involuntary.
Noah stared at her.
“Then will I be family?”
Emma crossed the room before Lauren could answer.
She knelt and held his face between her hands.
“You do not buy your place in this family.”
“But—”
“Never.”
His eyes filled again.
“Then why did she say it?”
Emma looked over his shoulder.
Lauren was crying silently now.
Emma wanted to say because she was jealous.
Because she was angry.
Because she wanted to hurt me and you were easier to reach.
All of those answers contained pieces of truth.
None belonged in Noah’s hands yet.
“Because adults sometimes say terrible things when they’re angry,” Emma said. “And being angry does not make the terrible thing true.”
Noah sniffed.
“Do I have another mom?”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know right now.”
“Do you know her name?”
“Yes.”
Lauren left the kitchen.
The sliding door opened and shut behind her.
Emma watched it for a second.
Noah touched her wrist.
“What’s her name?”
Emma looked at Helen.
Her mother said nothing.
Robert stared at the floor.
This was the conversation Emma had feared for years, and she was having it while cake frosting dried on a paper plate and her father’s trust documents sat open beside a broken picture.
Maybe there had never been a clean version.
“Her name is Rebecca,” Emma said.
Noah repeated it once.
“Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
“Did she not want me?”
Emma’s eyes burned.
“No.”
His face changed.
Emma shook her head quickly.
“No, listen to me. That isn’t what happened.”
“You said no.”
“I meant no, she didn’t give you up because she didn’t want you.”
“Then why?”
“She was very young. She was having problems she couldn’t fix while taking care of a baby. She made a decision that you needed something she couldn’t give you then.”
Noah looked down.
“Were you there?”
“No.”
“So how do you know?”
Emma stopped.
A seven-year-old had found the weakness in the story faster than every adult who had helped her rehearse it.
“Because of what I was told.”
“By Rebecca?”
“No.”
“Then maybe it’s wrong.”
Emma sat back on her heels.
Helen turned her face away.
Noah wiped his nose with his wrist.
“I want to see the picture.”
“What picture?”
“The broken one.”
Emma hesitated.
Then she took it from the table.
Most of the glass had been removed. A few shards remained caught beneath the wooden lip of the frame.
She held it where he could see without touching.
Noah studied the crack through his own image.
“Can you fix it?”
“The frame?”
“The picture.”
“The picture isn’t broken. Just the glass.”
He looked at her.
May you like
“So we can put new glass?”
“Yes.”
