Chương 8
“Why your arm around Claire?”
Mark’s eyebrows lifted.
Daniel immediately felt ridiculous.
“That sounded petty,” he said.
“It did.”
Emma looked from one man to the other.
“I told them to stop standing like divorced diplomats.”
Mark closed his eyes.
“Emma.”
“What? You were both being weird.”
Daniel felt something dangerous happen.
He almost smiled.
Mark saw it.
For a brief moment, both men were trapped in the same absurdity.
Then Daniel remembered why they were together.
“Were you and Claire involved after the divorce?”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“No.”
“Since March?”
“No.”
“Did you want to be?”
Mark stared at him.
“No.”
Daniel held the stare.
Mark continued, “I spent a decade being furious with her. Then I spent another few years trying not to be. Rachel made that easier.”
His voice changed on Rachel’s name.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Daniel recognized grief because he had seen it in his own father after his mother died.
Mark looked down at his hands.
“When Rachel got sick, she told me Emma might eventually look for Claire.”
Emma’s head turned.
“You never told me that.”
Mark’s face tightened.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Rachel said a lot of things at the end.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“I know.”
Emma stood.
Mark looked up.
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“Emma.”
“You told me you thought Mom would hate this.”
“I did.”
“You never said she expected it.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“You should have told me.”
Mark glanced at Daniel.
Daniel almost said, Welcome to the club.
He didn’t.
Emma shoved her hands into her pockets again.
“She told you to let me find Claire?”
“No. She told me not to make Claire into a monster if you did.”
The girl’s anger faltered.
Mark stared at the carpet.
“She said you were old enough to learn that adults can fail people and still be people.”
Emma’s eyes filled.
She looked away immediately.
Daniel stood.
“I’m going to get that water.”
Nobody objected.
In the kitchen, he filled three glasses.
Then four.
He stared at the fourth glass.
Claire was not there.
He put it back.
When he returned, Emma had sat down again.
She accepted the water.
“Thank you.”
Mark took his.
Daniel sat.
Emma said, “I’m sorry I came.”
“I’m not.”
She looked surprised.
Daniel considered what he meant.
“I’m not glad about any of this. But I’m glad I know you’re a person and not a photograph.”
Emma nodded slowly.
“I guess same.”
Mark’s phone vibrated.
He checked it and sighed.
“Lucas.”
“What?” Emma asked.
“He wants to know whether you ruined everyone’s life yet.”
Emma rolled her eyes.
Daniel said, “Tell him we’re pacing ourselves.”
Mark looked at him.
Then, unexpectedly, laughed.
It lasted half a second.
The sound made Daniel angry.
Then less angry.
He hated that too.
They left after thirty minutes.
At the door, Mark paused.
“You should know something.”
Daniel waited.
“Claire tried harder than she told you.”
“About the kids?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because I spent years wanting her punished for leaving.”
Mark glanced toward Emma waiting near the SUV.
“I got what I wanted. She stayed gone. It didn’t make anything better.”
Daniel said nothing.
Mark continued.
“She deserved consequences. So did I, for some things. But eventually consequences become a place people live, and nobody remembers who built it.”
“That sounds like forgiveness.”
“No.”
Mark opened the door.
“It’s fatigue.”
After they left, Daniel called Claire.
“Emma was here.”
The silence lasted only a second.
“What?”
“Mark brought her.”
“Oh my God.”
“She’s fine.”
“I told her not to go.”
“She’s sixteen.”
“That isn’t an explanation.”
“It apparently is in several states.”
Claire did not laugh.
Daniel sat in the chair Emma had used.
“She told me you wanted to tell me.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“She also told me Rachel expected her to come looking for you.”
Claire went quiet.
“You knew that?”
“No.”
“Mark did.”
Another silence.
Daniel heard a faucet running on Claire’s end, then shutting off.
“Are you still at the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“Come home tomorrow.”
Claire did not answer immediately.
“For what?”
“To talk.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say that I haven’t already said.”
“The parts you edited.”
Her breath caught.
Daniel continued.
“I got the court records.”
“Of course you did.”
He heard bitterness.
“You lied to me for nine years and you’re annoyed I checked public records?”
“I’m not annoyed.”
“You sound annoyed.”
“I’m ashamed.”
“That can sound surprisingly similar.”
“I know.”
They agreed on noon.
Claire arrived at twelve eleven carrying the black suitcase she had supposedly taken to Milwaukee.
Daniel watched from the kitchen as she set it near the door.
She wore jeans, a cream sweater, and no makeup.
Her hair was down.
He had seen Claire sick, grieving, furious, drunk once at a Christmas party, and asleep with her mouth open on an airplane.
He had never seen her enter their home as though she needed permission.
“Coffee?” he asked.
She blinked.
“Yes.”
He poured two cups.
Claire took hers but did not drink.
They sat at the kitchen table.
The parsley was still in the glass.
Claire looked at it.
“You bought parsley.”
Daniel almost said something cruel.
Instead he nodded.
“I also briefly threw it away.”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
“I was having a complicated evening.”
A small sound escaped her.
Not quite a laugh.
Then she covered her mouth.
“Sorry.”
“It was objectively stupid.”
“I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“I know.”
They sat with that small, ridiculous thing between them.
Then Daniel said, “Start at the beginning.”
So she did.
Not neatly.
Claire’s first marriage had been impulsive, built around pregnancy and fear and two people who believed wanting to be better was the same as being capable of it.
Mark worked construction management and traveled.
Claire had Emma.
Eleven months later, she was pregnant with Lucas.
May you like
She stopped sleeping.
She developed panic attacks she hid because she believed good mothers did not panic when their babies cried.
