Chương 2
When he died, the suitcase went to Linda.
Then, according to Robert, it disappeared.
Emily had believed that until three nights earlier.
Her mother had called while Emily was brushing her teeth.
“Do you still have Grandpa’s brass key?”
Emily had stared at herself in the bathroom mirror with toothpaste on her lip.
“What brass key?”
“The little flat one. He gave it to you before he died.”
Emily did have it.
It was attached to a ring with two apartment keys and an old plastic tag from a gym she had stopped using six years ago.
“Why?”
A long silence.
Then Linda said, “I found the suitcase.”
Emily had stopped brushing.
“Where?”
“Here.”
“You told me Dad threw it out.”
“I know.”
“You both told me that.”
“I know.”
“Mom.”
Another silence.
“Come Saturday.”
Emily had rinsed her mouth.
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
That was the first lie of the call.
Emily had recognized it because Linda’s voice became careful when she lied, as if selecting stepping stones across water.
“What is in it?”
“I need you to see it yourself.”
Now Emily stood four feet from her mother in the same cabin where the suitcase had apparently been hidden for a decade.
She folded her arms.
“You called me because you found it. Fine. You told me Dad couldn’t know. Fine. Then I get here and he’s waiting at the door like I’m a criminal.”
Linda looked at Robert.
“I didn’t tell him she was coming.”
Robert gave a humorless laugh.
“Your headlights came up the driveway. I’m not blind.”
“You told me she wasn’t welcome here,” Linda said.
“That was before she started showing up with accusations.”
“I hadn’t said anything yet,” Emily replied.
“You didn’t have to.”
He nodded at the suitcase.
“You dragged that thing into my house like some kind of threat.”
“It was already in your house.”
Robert stopped.
Emily watched his expression.
He had not known.
She turned to Linda.
“Where did you find it?”
Linda opened her mouth.
Robert spoke first.
“Answer her.”
Linda looked at him.
“Behind the false panel in the attic.”
Robert frowned.
“What false panel?”
“Dad built it.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Years ago.”
Robert stared toward the ceiling as though he might see through the timber.
Emily said, “You knew the suitcase was there?”
“No.”
“You told me Dad threw it away.”
“I thought he did.”
Robert’s gaze snapped toward her.
“You said you threw it out.”
The room changed.
Not loudly.
A small adjustment.
Emily looked from Linda to Robert.
Robert pointed at his wife.
“You told her I threw it away?”
Linda pressed her lips together.
“Linda.”
“Yes.”
Robert’s hand fell.
“I never touched that suitcase.”
Emily felt the old certainty inside her shift half an inch.
Ten years ago she had been twenty-four, living in Chicago, working at a nonprofit whose executive director kept forgetting to sign reimbursement checks. She had received a call from Robert at 6:17 on a Tuesday morning.
Her father had not greeted her.
He had said, “Don’t come home.”
She had sat upright in bed.
“What?”
“I know what you did.”
She thought he had the wrong number.
“What are you talking about?”
“You lied to your mother. You lied to me. You took money from your grandfather when he was sick, and now you’re trying to hide it.”
Emily had laughed.
A single stunned sound.
Robert mistook it for contempt.
He told her not to contact them again.
Later that morning, Linda called and cried.
She never said Emily had stolen anything.
She only said Robert had “seen the papers.”
Emily asked what papers.
Linda said she did not know.
Emily asked her to tell Robert he was wrong.
Linda said, “He won’t listen to me right now.”
That “right now” lasted ten years.
Birthdays passed.
Then holidays.
Then silence became easier for everybody except Emily, which made it permanent.
She looked at her mother.
“What exactly did Dad see?”
Linda walked past them into the living room.
Robert followed.
Emily stayed where she was for a moment.
The suitcase remained open on the floor.
One strap hung loose.
She crouched and touched the broken latch.
It had been brass once, but years of tarnish had darkened it almost black around the hinge.
Her grandfather had hated broken things.
Not because he was sentimental.
Because he was cheap.
He once repaired the same toaster three times rather than buy a new one, and each repair made it more dangerous.
The memory came with the smell of burned bread.
Emily smiled before she could stop herself.
Then she closed the suitcase as well as she could and carried it into the living room.
Robert and Linda stood on opposite sides of the stone fireplace.
The cabin had belonged to Linda’s parents first. Arthur had bought it in 1978, when the lake road was still gravel and the nearest grocery store closed at six. After his death, Linda inherited it, but Robert had renovated most of it and gradually began calling it his.
Emily set the suitcase beside a chair.
Robert said, “Open the envelope.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Noah is upstairs.”
“He can’t hear us.”
Emily looked toward the staircase.
“You really want to bet his life on that?”
Robert’s face tightened.
Linda sat down.
Emily remained standing.
She had driven here intending to learn why her parents had cut her out of their lives.
Now the question had changed.
“What does Noah have to do with this?”
Linda stared at her hands.
Robert looked at Emily.
“You’re asking us?”
“I’m asking her.”
Linda whispered, “He has everything to do with it.”
Robert’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Emily’s heartbeat seemed to strike once in her throat.
She sat.
Nobody moved for several seconds.
Then Robert crossed to the bottom of the staircase and called, “Noah?”
A muffled voice answered from above.
“Yeah?”
“You got your headphones?”
May you like
“What?”
“Put your headphones on.”
