Chương 3
“That doesn’t mean you hide this.”
“No. It means I knew exactly what would happen if I came to you with a suspicion.”
He looked at her.
“What would happen?”
“You’d ask whether I was sure. Then you’d ask whether I was being fair. Then you’d call her.”
“That’s what people do before accusing their mother of forging documents.”
“And she would make the evidence disappear.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
Claire heard herself becoming louder and stopped.
Upstairs, floorboards creaked.
They both looked toward the ceiling.
Michael lowered his voice.
“What does any of this have to do with Sophie?”
Claire looked at the envelope.
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t.”
“She told you to take our daughter and disappear before I learned why she was really here.”
“I heard her.”
“So what does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must have some idea.”
Claire hesitated.
That was enough.
Michael stepped back from the island.
“Oh, Jesus.”
“It may be nothing.”
“What?”
“There’s another file.”
“What file?”
“I didn’t take it.”
“Claire.”
“It had Sophie’s name on it.”
His face emptied.
“What?”
“In your father’s cabinet. A folder. Sophie Bennett.”
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You opened everything else but not that?”
“I tried. Your mother came into the house.”
“You said she was in Palm Beach.”
“She came back early.”
“And?”
“I put everything back except the copy of the transfer document.”
“You stole it.”
“Yes.”
He stared at her.
Claire wished she could become the person she had been in her imagined versions of this conversation—composed, justified, certain.
Instead, she felt tired and ashamed.
“I stole it.”
Michael pulled out a chair and sat.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then he said, “Why didn’t you tell me about the folder?”
“Because it could have been anything.”
“With our daughter’s name on it?”
“Your father kept birthday cards.”
“That’s not why.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Claire looked toward the stairs.
“Because Diane saw me.”
Michael went still.
“She knew?”
“She knew I had been in the cabinet.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked what I was looking for.”
“And?”
“I said the restoration crew needed the shelves cleared.”
“And she believed you?”
“No.”
The next morning, the cabinet had been empty.
Claire had returned to the Weston house after dropping Sophie at school. Every folder was gone. Every box. Even Thomas’s old tax binders.
Michael rubbed both hands over his face.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
That answer seemed to make him angrier than an argument would have.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“For six months I’ve been sitting across from her at dinners. I went to Nantucket with her. I helped her deal with Dad’s foundation.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Claire stopped.
Michael stood and walked to the sink. He stared through the dark window.
After a while, he said, “Dad’s estate gave Mom control of the company.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted that.”
“Did he?”
Michael turned.
“You think she forged his estate documents too?”
“I think we don’t know what she forged.”
A noise came from the doorway.
Sophie stood there in pajamas.
Neither had heard her come downstairs.
She was holding the stuffed rabbit.
“Mom?”
Claire’s stomach dropped.
“What are you doing up?”
“I can’t sleep.”
Sophie looked at Michael.
“Did Grandpa do something bad?”
Michael’s face crumpled in a way Claire had not seen at the airport.
He crouched.
“No, Soph.”
“Grandma did?”
“We’re figuring something out.”
Sophie rubbed the rabbit’s ear against her cheek.
“Are you getting divorced?”
Claire stared at her.
“What?”
“Lily’s parents yelled in the kitchen and then got divorced.”
Michael looked down.
Claire crossed the room and knelt beside him.
“No. Your dad and I are upset about something, but we both love you.”
“And each other?”
There was the smallest pause.
Sophie noticed it.
Children always noticed the pauses adults thought they had hidden.
Michael said, “Yes.”
Claire looked at him.
“Yes,” she said.
Sophie accepted this provisionally.
“Can I sleep with you?”
That night Sophie slept between them.
Michael faced the wall.
Claire lay awake listening to her daughter breathe.
At 2:17 a.m., Michael whispered, “Why was she really here?”
Claire knew he wasn’t asking about Diane.
“I don’t know.”
This time, he believed her.
At breakfast, Michael burned the toast.
He always burned toast when distracted because he insisted the dial on their toaster was inaccurate and compensated by turning it higher, which had never made sense to Claire.
Sophie scraped the black edge with a butter knife.
“You made it bad again.”
“Apparently.”
“You should learn.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re thirty-seven.”
Claire laughed before she could stop herself.
Michael looked at her.
For one second they were themselves.
Then his phone rang.
Diane.
He let it ring.
It stopped.
Thirty seconds later, Claire’s phone buzzed.
A text.
We need to speak privately. Without Michael.
Claire showed him.
“Answer her,” Michael said.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Tell her yes.”
Claire looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because I want to know what she says when she thinks I’m not there.”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“Probably.”
“You want me to lie.”
“You’ve been doing that pretty effectively.”
The words landed.
Michael regretted them immediately.
Claire could see it.
He didn’t apologize.
She didn’t ask him to.
Sophie looked between them.
“Can I have more orange juice?”
Claire poured it.
After they dropped Sophie at school, they sat in the car for ten minutes.
Neither wanted to be first.
Finally Claire said, “I’m sorry.”
Michael looked through the windshield.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid you’d choose her version before I had proof.”
He nodded slowly.
“That’s not exactly a compliment.”
“No.”
“Was I that bad?”
Claire considered lying.
“Yes.”
He absorbed it.
“I didn’t think I was choosing her.”
“I know.”
“What did you think I was doing?”
“Keeping the peace.”
“And that felt like choosing her.”
May you like
“It was choosing whoever was willing to make the peace hardest to keep.”
Michael looked at her then.
