Chương 7
But Linda was talking about before.
“How long?” Sophie asked.
“Three months.”
Margaret stared at her sister.
“He knew for three months and told you?”
“He didn’t want you worrying until he knew.”
Margaret walked out of the kitchen.
No one followed immediately.
That was perhaps the first wise decision anyone had made all day.
Sophie looked at Linda.
“What was Dad trying to do?”
Linda sat.
“He was afraid he’d die before telling you the truth.”
“Which truth?”
“All of it.”
“Why then?”
“Because he didn’t want the secret to become your mother’s burden alone.”
Sophie looked toward the doorway Margaret had disappeared through.
“And Robert?”
“Daniel wanted to find Michael. He asked me if I knew how.”
“You contacted Robert.”
“I thought he might.”
Michael made a disgusted sound.
Linda snapped at him.
“You don’t get to judge me.”
He stopped.
She was right.
“I told Robert Daniel was trying to reach Michael. That was all.”
“And Robert pretended to be him.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Sophie looked at Daniel’s phone.
“What did Dad write after the meeting?”
They searched.
There was a note dated October 18.
Not a message.
A draft.
Three words.
He is lying.
Ethan read them over her shoulder.
“About what?”
Nobody knew.
Michael sat across from Sophie.
For the first time since arriving, he looked frightened.
Not of Margaret.
Of his brother.
“Robert always hated that I cooperated.”
“Enough to impersonate you twenty years later?”
“He doesn’t do things because they make sense to other people.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“Then make it sound better.”
“I can’t.”
Sophie stood.
“Call him.”
Michael stared.
“I haven’t spoken to him since 2008.”
“Tonight seems popular for reunions.”
“Sophie,” Ethan said.
“What?”
“Maybe don’t provoke the possibly criminal uncle.”
She looked at him.
“Half uncle.”
“That is your takeaway?”
It was stupid enough that she laughed.
Then Ethan did.
Linda covered her mouth.
The laughter lasted perhaps five seconds.
Margaret appeared in the doorway.
She had been crying.
Not dramatically.
Her eyes were red and her makeup beneath one eye had smudged.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” Sophie said.
Margaret nodded.
“Good.”
That nearly started them again.
Michael looked down to hide his smile.
Margaret saw.
“Absolutely not.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“I am.”
That ended the laughter.
Sophie looked at her mother.
“Dad left a note after meeting Robert.”
Margaret came closer.
“What did it say?”
“He is lying.”
“About what?”
“We don’t know.”
Margaret looked at Michael.
“Call your brother.”
Michael blinked.
“You just—”
“I changed my mind.”
Nobody commented on it.
Michael found an old number.
Disconnected.
He tried another.
A voicemail answered.
A man’s recorded voice said, “You know what to do.”
Sophie felt the hair rise along her arms.
The voice sounded like Michael.
Not identical.
Close.
Michael ended the call.
Ethan whispered, “That’s creepy.”
Michael looked offended.
“He’s my brother.”
“That does not make it less creepy.”
They left a message.
Michael kept it simple.
“Robert. It’s Mike. Call me.”
Nothing happened.
That was the problem with real life.
The revelation did not arrive on schedule.
At ten thirty, Sophie ate a slice of her mother’s birthday cake standing over the kitchen sink.
The frosting was too sweet.
Margaret sat at the table drinking tea.
Michael had gone to a motel in Burlington after Sophie made him promise not to leave Vermont.
Ethan was asleep on the living-room couch with his shoes on.
Linda had gone home.
Mother and daughter were alone.
Sophie scraped frosting from her fork.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Margaret stared into her tea.
“I told myself I would when you were older.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“I noticed.”
“Apparently not.”
Margaret accepted that.
“When you were ten, ten seemed too young. At sixteen you were having trouble at school.”
“I got a C in chemistry.”
“You acted as if civilization had collapsed.”
“I was dramatic.”
“You were sixteen.”
“At eighteen?”
“You were leaving for college.”
“Twenty-one?”
“Daniel had just had surgery.”
“Twenty-three?”
Margaret looked at her.
“Your father died.”
There it was.
Every year had contained a reason.
Sophie put down the fork.
“You could have found one forever.”
“Yes.”
The admission disarmed her.
Margaret wrapped both hands around the mug.
“I was afraid.”
“Of Michael?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
“You.”
Sophie frowned.
“What about me?”
“That you’d look at Daniel differently.”
The answer hurt because Sophie understood it.
Margaret looked toward the dark window.
“He loved you from the first week he knew you. Not abstractly. Not because he loved me. He learned how you liked your toast cut. He knew which stuffed rabbit had to be in the bed and which one was unacceptable. He sat outside your preschool bathroom for forty minutes because you refused to come out after another child laughed at your shoes.”
Sophie looked down.
She remembered the rabbit.
Not the bathroom.
“I was afraid biology would make all of that smaller.”
“It doesn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you?”
Margaret considered.
“I’m trying to.”
Sophie sat opposite her.
“Why did Dad keep the letters?”
“He thought they belonged to you.”
“And you?”
“I thought throwing them away would keep Michael from existing.”
“That didn’t work.”
“No.”
Margaret smiled tiredly.
“No, it did not.”
The storm had moved east.
Water dripped from the gutters.
Somewhere in the house Ethan snored once, loudly, then stopped.
Sophie looked at her mother.
“Did you ever love Michael?”
Margaret's face became guarded.
“That matters to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes.”
Sophie waited.
Margaret continued.
“I loved him very much.”
“Even after he hit you?”
“For a while.”
Sophie did not understand.
Margaret saw that.
“I don’t recommend it.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“No.”
But there had been dry humor in it.
Margaret looked at her hands.
“Love doesn’t always leave when it should. Sometimes your judgment leaves first.”
Sophie said nothing.
“I hated myself for missing him.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Eventually.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing useful.”
May you like
That sounded promising.
“What does that mean?”
