Chương 3
“Why?”
Robert closed his eyes.
“Just do it.”
A pause.
“Okay.”
Robert returned.
Emily watched him sit across from Linda.
He looked older than he had at the door.
Not weaker.
Simply older.
“What does he have to do with it?”
Linda rubbed one thumb across the other.
“You’re going to hate me.”
Robert leaned forward.
“You need to stop saying things like that and start saying what happened.”
Linda looked at Emily.
“I wanted to tell you first.”
“You had ten years.”
“I know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know.”
Robert struck one palm lightly against his knee.
“Linda.”
She jumped.
He immediately pulled his hand back.
“Sorry.”
That apology, small and automatic, landed strangely with Emily.
He had never apologized to her for anything significant.
But he apologized for making Linda jump.
Linda inhaled.
“When Dad got sick, he changed his will.”
Robert frowned.
“What does that have to do with Emily?”
“He didn’t just change the will.”
She looked toward the suitcase.
“He started keeping records.”
“Records of what?”
“Money.”
Robert glanced at Emily.
“That’s what I saw.”
Emily’s stomach tightened.
“What did you see?”
“A withdrawal slip.”
“How much?”
“Eighty-four thousand dollars.”
Emily stared at him.
“I have never had eighty-four thousand dollars in my life.”
“I know that now.”
The words came so quietly she almost missed them.
Emily leaned back.
“You know that now?”
Robert looked at the floor.
Linda began crying without sound.
Emily felt heat rise behind her eyes and hated it.
“No,” she said.
Robert looked up.
“No what?”
“You do not get to say that like we’re discussing a bad restaurant recommendation.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You called me a thief.”
“I was wrong.”
“You told me not to come to Grandpa’s funeral reception.”
Robert’s face changed.
“I know.”
“You mailed my things.”
“I know.”
“You told Aunt Carol I had taken advantage of a dying man.”
“I know.”
“And now you know you were wrong?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
Robert did not answer.
Linda stood abruptly.
“I’m going to check on Noah.”
Emily said, “Sit down.”
Linda froze.
For the first time in Emily’s life, her mother obeyed her immediately.
Robert stared at Linda.
“How long?”
Linda lowered herself back into the chair.
Robert’s voice became rough.
“How long have you known?”
Linda whispered, “Since the beginning.”
The rain filled the silence.
Emily heard the refrigerator compressor click off in the kitchen.
Robert’s face went completely still.
“You knew she didn’t take it.”
Linda nodded.
Robert stood.
The chair legs scraped.
Emily tensed, but he did not move toward Linda.
He walked to the window.
Rainwater crawled down the glass, bending the reflection of his shoulders.
“Where did the money go?”
Linda did not answer.
Robert turned.
“Where did it go?”
“To Daniel.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Daniel Bell.
Linda’s younger brother.
Noah’s father.
The man who had died four years ago after spending most of his adult life making emergencies everybody else had to solve.
Robert laughed once.
It sounded tired.
“Of course.”
Linda shook her head.
“It wasn’t what you think.”
“What do I think?”
“That he stole it.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
Emily watched Linda.
Her mother’s denials had categories.
This one sounded real.
“What happened?”
Linda pressed both hands between her knees.
“Dad gave it to him.”
Robert blinked.
“Arthur gave Daniel eighty-four thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
Linda looked upstairs.
Emily followed her eyes.
Then the answer arrived before the words did.
“Noah,” Emily said.
Linda nodded.
Robert sat again.
For years, the family had told people Daniel had become Noah’s guardian after the boy’s mother disappeared from his life.
It had always been a vague story.
Daniel had dated a woman named Marissa briefly. She became pregnant. She left. Daniel raised Noah.
Nobody talked about details because Daniel hated questions.
After Daniel died, Linda and Robert took Noah in.
Emily had learned all of this through relatives and Facebook photographs she pretended not to search for.
She had never met the boy until tonight.
“What was the money for?” Robert asked.
Linda wiped her face.
“Legal fees. Medical bills. A settlement.”
“What settlement?”
“Marissa wasn’t Noah’s mother.”
Emily felt the room tilt again.
Robert stared.
Linda continued before either of them could interrupt.
“Daniel wasn’t his father either.”
Upstairs, something thumped.
All three adults looked toward the ceiling.
A few seconds later, music began faintly through the floorboards.
Noah had put on his headphones.
Robert looked back at Linda.
“Then whose child is he?”
Linda pressed one hand over her mouth.
Emily already knew she would hate the answer.
Not because she could predict it.
Because her mother was looking at her.
Emily’s voice became thin.
“No.”
Linda’s shoulders folded.
“No.”
“Emily—”
“No.”
Robert stood again.
“What?”
Emily looked at him.
She could barely speak.
“Ask her.”
Robert stared at Linda.
“Whose child is Noah?”
Linda whispered, “Emily’s.”
The first thing Emily noticed was the lamp.
A small moth had gotten inside the shade and was hitting itself against the fabric.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
Robert said something.
Emily did not hear it.
Linda got up.
Emily lifted one hand.
“Don’t touch me.”
Linda stopped.
Robert’s mouth moved again.
This time Emily heard him.
“How is that possible?”
She turned on him so quickly he stepped back.
“How do you think?”
“No, I mean—”
“I know what you mean.”
Emily stood.
Her knees felt unreliable.
She gripped the chair.
Linda began, “You were twenty-three.”
“I know how old I was.”
“You were in the hospital.”
“I remember the hospital.”
The words came too loudly.
All three looked upstairs again.
The music continued.
Emily lowered her voice.
“I remember losing a pregnancy.”
Linda’s face crumpled.
Emily stared at her.
“I remember you telling me the baby died.”
Robert looked at Linda.
“Jesus Christ.”
Emily’s fingers tightened around the chair back.
May you like
She had been twenty-three and seven months pregnant.
The father, Ethan Cole, had left when Emily was five months along, not because he did not want the child but because he and Emily had been fighting so badly that every conversation became damage.
