Chương 12
Daniel looked up.
Richard held his gaze.
For one second, father and son recognized each other too clearly.
Daniel set down the pen.
“You’re right.”
Richard seemed startled.
“I hated when you controlled information. I’m doing it now because I want you uncomfortable.”
Margaret looked at Daniel.
Evelyn did too.
Daniel continued.
“I’m angry.”
Richard nodded.
“You have every right.”
“Don’t manage me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Richard leaned back.
“Fine.”
Daniel asked, “Did Susan want me to know?”
Richard’s face changed.
This question was different.
He looked toward Margaret.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Richard looked at Daniel.
“Yes.”
Daniel stopped breathing for a moment.
“When?”
“Before she died.”
Evelyn’s eyes filled instantly.
“You never told me that.”
Richard looked at her.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because she told me privately.”
“Mom told you to tell him?”
“She said when he was old enough.”
Evelyn stood.
“You son of a bitch.”
Margaret rose too.
“Evelyn.”
“No.”
Evelyn pointed at Richard.
“You made me think I was betraying her.”
Richard’s face tightened.
“She did not understand how sick she was.”
“She understood plenty.”
“She was on morphine.”
Evelyn slammed her palm against the table.
Daniel flinched.
Evelyn saw it.
She stopped.
Her breathing shook.
“I spent half my life thinking the last thing Mom wanted from me was silence.”
Richard looked down.
Daniel asked, “What exactly did Susan say?”
Richard remained silent.
Daniel waited.
Finally he said, “She said, ‘Don’t make him build his life on something that isn’t true.’”
Nobody moved.
Margaret sat slowly.
Daniel stared at the legal pad.
Susan’s photograph surfaced in his mind.
Her cutting the crust from toast.
Her shouting at Richard for leaving wet towels on the floor.
Her sitting beside Daniel during thunderstorms.
She had wanted him to know.
His father had buried even her wish.
“Why?” Daniel asked.
Richard rubbed his hands.
“I was terrified.”
It was the same word Margaret had used.
Daniel looked at him.
“Of what?”
“Losing you.”
“You already had me.”
“No.”
Richard’s voice broke slightly.
“You don’t understand. Susan was dying. Evelyn hated me. Margaret had started writing again. Everything was coming apart. You were eight years old. You were the only person in that house who still looked at me like I knew what I was doing.”
Daniel swallowed.
Richard gave a short, bitter laugh.
“I needed one person to believe I was still his father.”
“You were.”
“I didn’t believe that was enough.”
There it was.
Not justification.
A wound.
Ugly and selfish and human.
Daniel looked at Evelyn.
She had sat again.
Her anger remained, but beneath it was something like recognition.
Their father had been drowning and used them as furniture.
That did not make the damage smaller.
It made it understandable in a way Daniel almost resented.
Margaret said, “You could have asked for help.”
Richard looked at her.
“From whom?”
“Me.”
He laughed.
“You?”
“Yes.”
“You wanted my son.”
“Our son.”
Richard’s face closed.
Margaret continued.
“That is the problem. You believed love was possession.”
Richard looked away.
Daniel felt those words reach him too.
Claire’s money.
The wedding.
His habit of fixing problems without asking.
He wrote nothing down.
After two hours, Richard answered every question.
Or claimed to.
There were gaps nobody could verify.
Susan was dead.
Some letters were gone.
Memory had shifted.
Margaret remembered one conversation differently from Richard.
Evelyn accused him of minimizing.
Richard accused her of exaggerating.
Daniel stopped trying to build a perfect record.
There would never be one.
At eight seventeen, Richard said, “What do you want from me?”
Daniel looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“Punishment?”
“No.”
“Forgiveness?”
“No.”
Richard almost smiled.
“Good.”
Daniel leaned back.
“I want you to stop contacting Claire.”
Richard frowned.
“Why?”
“Because our relationship is none of your business.”
“I was trying to protect—”
Daniel raised one hand.
Richard stopped himself.
“Yes.”
Daniel continued.
“I want you to send Margaret copies of every document you still have related to my birth.”
Richard nodded.
“And Evelyn gets copies of Susan’s estate papers.”
Richard stiffened.
“Why?”
Evelyn looked at Daniel.
He said, “Because she asked you for them twenty years ago.”
Richard stared.
Then nodded.
“And I want space.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
Richard looked down.
“Okay.”
The answer was so unlike him that Daniel almost distrusted it.
Margaret stood.
Evelyn gathered her bag.
Richard remained seated.
Daniel waited until the women left.
Then he closed the conference-room door.
Richard looked up.
Daniel said, “Did you love Susan?”
Richard’s face softened.
“Yes.”
“Did you love Margaret?”
Richard looked toward the door she had just walked through.
“Yes.”
“Then why did you hurt both of them?”
Richard gave a tired smile.
“You’re asking the wrong man for a theory of good behavior.”
Daniel waited.
His father looked at his hands.
“I thought wanting two lives meant I deserved both.”
Daniel felt the sentence settle.
Richard continued.
“Then when I lost one, I spent thirty years trying to control the other.”
Daniel swallowed.
“I don’t know what to do with you.”
Richard’s eyes filled.
“You don’t have to do anything.”
That was the closest he came to mercy.
Daniel walked him to the elevator.
Before the doors closed, Richard said, “I am sorry.”
Daniel nodded.
He did not forgive him.
He did not reject him.
The doors closed.
On Saturday, Daniel called Claire.
She answered on the second ring.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Silence.
He stared at his kitchen.
“Can we meet?”
“Yes.”
“Not here.”
“Okay.”
They met at a coffee shop in Queens where nobody knew them.
Claire wore jeans and a navy sweater.
No makeup.
Daniel had never considered makeup significant until he noticed its absence.
She looked tired.
“How’s work?” he asked.
“They’re investigating.”
“What does that mean?”
“Lawyers.”
“Ah.”
“Very glamorous.”
He smiled.
She looked relieved.
Then cautious.
Daniel stirred coffee he did not need to stir.
“I talked to my father.”
“How was it?”
“Bad.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Also necessary.”
She nodded.
May you like
He looked at her.
“I keep thinking about what happened before the slap.”
