Chương 6
“No,” Sophie said.
Everyone looked at her.
“We’re not trusting anybody.”
She folded Daniel’s letter.
“We verify.”
Michael nodded.
Margaret glared at him.
“Stop approving of her.”
He looked genuinely confused.
“I wasn’t—”
“You were.”
Sophie would have laughed under any other circumstances.
Instead she put the letter into her purse.
“Ethan, did Dad have a calendar?”
“Probably.”
“Phone?”
“Still in Mom’s office.”
Margaret frowned. “It doesn’t turn on.”
“Do you still have the charger?”
“Somewhere.”
“Good.”
Sophie looked at Michael.
“Do you have proof of where you were last October?”
“Maybe.”
“Find it.”
He pulled out his phone.
Margaret stared.
“What are we doing?”
Sophie met her eyes.
“What you should have done twenty-two years ago.”
Margaret's face hardened.
“What exactly is that?”
“Letting me know enough to make my own decision.”
“You were three.”
“I’m not talking about when I was three.”
That landed.
Margaret sat.
Outside, the storm finally broke over the lake.
For the next hour, they did something so ordinary it felt obscene.
They searched.
Ethan drove back to the main house for Daniel’s old phone and returned with three chargers, none of which fit.
Margaret found a plastic storage bin of letters in the hall closet and brought it to the boathouse without comment.
Michael sat at the far end of the table scrolling through old bank statements.
Sophie read birthday cards from a father she had never known.
The first surviving one was from her seventh birthday.
Dear Sophie,
I hope you like horses. Your aunt said you do. I liked them too when I was little, but one bit me when I was nine, so I changed my opinion.
She read that line three times.
It was stupid.
It was human.
She hated him for giving her something human.
The letters did not contain pleas for forgiveness.
They did not attack Margaret.
Most were short.
He told her he hoped school was going well.
At twelve, he wrote that Linda had mentioned Sophie played soccer and that he had never understood offside rules despite having them explained repeatedly.
At sixteen, he said he had been sober for nine years.
That was the first letter that mentioned what he had done.
I hurt your mother. There is no version of that sentence where I am the victim. If you ever want to know me, you should know that first.
Sophie stopped reading.
Michael was across the room.
“How long?”
He looked up.
“What?”
“Sober.”
“Twenty years next March.”
“Alcohol?”
“Yes.”
“Was that why you hit her?”
“No.”
The answer surprised her.
He set down his phone.
“It made it easier for me to pretend I wasn’t responsible. That’s different.”
Margaret looked at him.
For the first time that evening, her expression held something other than fear or anger.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition again.
Michael returned to his phone.
At eight forty-seven, Ethan found the right charger in a kitchen junk drawer.
Daniel’s phone took eleven minutes to start.
The date was wrong.
The battery died once.
When it finally stayed on, there was no magical answer waiting.
No recording.
No confession.
No photograph of Robert.
There were old texts, weather alerts, pharmacy reminders, photographs of hardware-store shelves Daniel had apparently taken to compare prices, and seventeen nearly identical pictures of a woodpecker.
Ethan stared at them.
“Dad took seventeen pictures of a bird.”
“Eighteen,” Sophie said.
“That one’s a tree.”
“The bird’s behind the branch.”
They looked.
She was right.
For a moment they were brother and sister again.
Then Sophie found the calendar.
October 18.
M.V. — 2:30 — North Ave.
Michael checked his phone records.
“I was in Albany.”
“Proof?”
He showed them a hotel receipt, a credit-card charge and three work emails sent from a conference.
Ethan looked at Sophie.
“That’s pretty solid.”
Margaret was staring at Daniel’s calendar.
“Robert knew.”
“Knew what?” Sophie asked.
“That Daniel was looking for Michael.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Michael did.
“Linda.”
Everyone looked at him.
He immediately regretted saying it.
Margaret closed her eyes.
“No.”
Michael stood.
“Ask her.”
Linda was in the main house.
They found her alone in the kitchen washing plates no one had asked her to wash.
The party had ended quietly.
Most guests had gone home.
The cake sat untouched beneath plastic wrap.
Linda saw the four of them enter.
“Oh, God.”
Margaret put Daniel’s phone on the counter.
“Did you tell Robert that Daniel was looking for Michael?”
Linda's hands stopped in the sink.
That was enough.
Margaret sat at the kitchen table.
Sophie had never seen her mother look betrayed.
Angry, yes.
Hurt, certainly.
Betrayal was different.
It seemed to empty her.
Linda dried her hands.
“I didn’t know what Robert was going to do.”
“What did you tell him?”
“He called me.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“Before Daniel died?”
“Yes.”
Michael stepped forward.
“Why was Robert calling you?”
Linda looked at him.
“Because he wanted your number.”
“You gave it to him?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“He asked whether Margaret still lived here. Whether Sophie knew.”
Sophie felt Ethan move closer.
Linda continued.
“I told him no. Then he said Daniel had been asking questions.”
Margaret's voice was quiet.
“What questions?”
“About Michael. About the old case. About what happened before you left.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Daniel asked me not to.”
Margaret looked as if Linda had slapped her.
“He came to you?”
“He wanted to understand.”
“He could have asked me.”
“He said you wouldn’t tell him everything.”
Silence.
Margaret looked away.
Because that, apparently, was true.
Sophie touched Daniel’s phone.
“Why was Dad investigating this?”
Linda looked at her.
“He was sick.”
Sophie froze.
Ethan frowned.
“What?”
Linda's eyes filled.
“He knew before you did.”
Margaret stood.
“No.”
“He told me.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“He did.”
Daniel had died of pancreatic cancer seven months after diagnosis.
May you like
Seven months.
Sophie remembered the speed of it more than anything else. A stomachache. Tests. A doctor with kind eyes. Then calendars filled with appointments and medication schedules.
