Chương 9
That was the problem.
Monsters would have been easier.
Margaret stood.
“I should go.”
Daniel looked at her.
Panic surprised him.
“Where?”
“My hotel.”
“Which hotel?”
She told him.
Ten blocks away.
He nodded.
“Okay.”
She waited.
He realized she was waiting to see whether he would ask her to stay.
He could not.
Not yet.
Margaret picked up her clutch.
Claire stood too.
“Margaret.”
Margaret stopped.
Claire’s hands were empty now.
At her sides.
“I hit you.”
“Yes.”
“I believed something that wasn’t true, but that doesn’t matter.”
Margaret watched her.
Claire swallowed.
“I wanted someone to blame before I knew what had happened. And when I saw you, I decided you were safe to blame because you were older and alone and I thought nobody would stop me.”
Daniel looked at Claire.
The specificity made the apology real.
Claire continued.
“I’m sorry.”
Margaret did not rescue her.
“I believe you’re sorry.”
Claire nodded.
“I don’t expect—”
“Don’t.”
Claire stopped.
Margaret’s expression softened slightly.
“You were right the first time. Don’t make it about what I give you back.”
Claire’s eyes filled.
She nodded again.
Margaret turned to Daniel.
“I won’t contact you unless you contact me.”
Daniel hated the sentence.
It was respectful.
It also sounded like another disappearance.
“Wait.”
She stopped.
He took out his phone.
“What’s your number?”
Her face changed.
She told him.
He entered it.
Then he called.
Her clutch began ringing.
A plain bell tone.
Margaret looked down at it and smiled despite herself.
“I hate that ringtone.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Change it.”
“I never figure out how.”
“You’re sixty-seven, not dead.”
A laugh escaped her.
Small.
Warm.
It hit him harder than anything else that night.
He looked away.
“Go.”
Margaret nodded.
“Good night, Daniel.”
He did not call her Mom.
She did not ask him to.
Evelyn left with her.
Richard tried to stay.
Daniel made him leave.
Claire remained.
That surprised both of them.
Marcus offered Daniel his spare room.
Daniel declined.
The apartment Daniel shared with Claire waited forty floors above the East River, filled with unopened wedding gifts and luggage packed for Maui.
Going there together felt impossible.
Going separately felt worse.
They took different cars.
Daniel arrived first.
He removed his tuxedo jacket and draped it over the back of a chair.
The apartment looked exactly as it had that morning.
Coffee cup in the sink.
Claire’s running shoes beside the door.
A box from a department store on the dining table.
Two suitcases by the hallway.
He stood looking at them.
The blue one was his.
The cream one was hers.
Matching luggage had seemed funny when they bought it.
Now it looked accusatory.
He opened the refrigerator.
Nothing appealed to him.
He ate three slices of deli turkey standing at the counter.
Then he laughed because this was apparently what a man did after discovering his mother was alive and his sister existed.
He ate another slice.
Claire arrived twenty minutes later.
She had changed out of her gown somewhere.
She wore gray sweatpants and one of Daniel’s old Michigan T-shirts.
Her bridal hair was still pinned up.
Pearl earrings still in.
The combination was so familiar and wrong that Daniel had to look away.
She saw the turkey package.
“You’re eating deli meat?”
“Apparently.”
She nodded.
“I had a protein bar in the car.”
“Good.”
They stood in the kitchen.
Neither knew the etiquette for the night after a wedding that had not happened.
Claire removed the earrings.
She placed them on the counter carefully.
“My mother is staying at the hotel.”
“Okay.”
“Dad went home.”
“Okay.”
“Three people from work called.”
“Okay.”
She looked at him.
“Can you say something else?”
Daniel leaned against the refrigerator.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s something else.”
He almost smiled.
She pulled a pin from her hair.
Then another.
Her bun loosened.
Daniel had watched her take her hair down hundreds of times.
The ordinary intimacy was unbearable.
“Are we over?” she asked.
He looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
No tears.
Not yet.
“I hit someone.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were having some kind of relationship with her.”
“She’s my mother.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t then.”
“No.”
He rubbed his face.
Claire sat at the island.
“I keep replaying it.”
“The slap?”
“The second before it.”
Daniel said nothing.
“I saw her looking at you.”
“She was?”
“Yes. She had this expression. I thought it was possessive.”
Daniel looked toward the dark window.
Claire continued.
“Now I know what it was.”
He did not ask.
He understood.
Claire pulled another pin from her hair.
“I wanted to humiliate her.”
Daniel looked back.
She met his eyes.
“That’s the part I can’t explain away.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not.”
Silence.
Daniel took a glass from the cabinet.
Filled it with water.
Drank half.
Claire said, “Did you know why Margaret paid?”
“No.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That she had no children and more money than she needed.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Oh.”
Daniel leaned against the sink.
“I thought she was lonely.”
“She was.”
“Not in the way I thought.”
“No.”
Claire removed the final pin.
Her hair fell around her shoulders.
They had planned for Daniel to do that later in the honeymoon suite.
He turned away.
Claire noticed.
“I’ll sleep in the guest room.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll move out tomorrow.”
He looked at her.
“You don’t have to do that tomorrow.”
“I think I do.”
“Why?”
“Because if I stay, we’ll start pretending.”
Daniel had no argument.
At midnight, he lay on their bed alone.
At twelve thirty, he got up.
At one fifteen, he searched Evelyn Mercer online.
He found her easily.
Associate professor of urban policy.
Temple University.
Publications.
Panel discussions.
A photograph.
His sister existed on the internet in dozens of places while remaining absent from his life.
At one forty, he searched Margaret Hale.
May you like
Former nonprofit executive.
Affordable housing consultant.
