Chương 9
“I know.”
The old rhythm between them had shifted slightly. They were still defensive, still circling the same wound, but neither had hung up.
“Is Noah okay?” Rachel asked.
“He keeps checking the stove knobs.”
Rachel’s chest tightened. “What?”
“Before bed. He checks if they’re off.”
“Have you talked to someone?”
“The school counselor.”
“Good.”
“He wants to see Lily.”
“She decides.”
“I told him.”
Another pause.
“Rachel,” Daniel said, “did Dad scare us more than I remember?”
She looked at the peach magnet on the refrigerator.
“Yes.”
Daniel breathed out slowly.
“I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Neither do I.”
Eleanor came to the garden center the following week.
Rachel saw her through the glass doors, standing beside a display of hydrangeas in the same white trousers she wore to nearly every summer occasion. She looked lost among the rows of plants.
Rachel’s first impulse was to hide in the stockroom.
Instead, she walked outside.
“You can’t come to my work like this.”
“I called.”
“I blocked you yesterday.”
“I know.”
“Why are you here?”
Eleanor held out a paper bag. “Lily left her sweater.”
Rachel did not take it.
“You drove twenty minutes to return a sweater in July?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Dad isn’t allowed contact.”
“He isn’t here.”
“Did he ask you to come?”
“No.”
Rachel watched her mother’s face.
Eleanor added, “He knows I came.”
“That isn’t the same answer.”
“No, he didn’t ask.”
Customers moved around them, comparing patio pots. A child begged his father for a small cactus. Rachel lowered her voice.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to know he is trying.”
“He sent a lawyer’s apology that doesn’t name what he did.”
“He’s frightened anything he says will be used against him.”
“That’s because it may be.”
“He could lose his volunteer position.”
Frank coached a youth woodworking program twice a month at the community center. The thought of him around other children made Rachel’s stomach tighten, though she knew that reaction did not prove he had harmed anyone else.
“He should not be working with children while this is unresolved.”
“It’s the one thing that makes him feel useful since retirement.”
“That is not my responsibility.”
Eleanor’s hands closed around the paper bag. “You sound cruel.”
Rachel felt the old reflex: explain, soften, restore.
She resisted it.
“I sound like someone you can’t move.”
Eleanor looked away.
A cart rattled across the pavement. Somewhere inside the garden center, a phone rang.
“I gave a statement,” Eleanor said.
“I know.”
“I told them what happened.”
“You also told them he didn’t intend harm.”
“I don’t believe he did.”
“He intended to frighten her.”
Eleanor’s eyes returned to Rachel’s. “I don’t know.”
“You watched him pick up the tongs.”
“I thought he was moving them.”
“You saw him hold her.”
“It happened so fast.”
“Everything happens fast when you plan to explain it afterward.”
Eleanor’s face tightened.
“That’s unfair.”
“Is it?”
“I was horrified.”
“You stood there.”
“So did June.”
“June called the police.”
The words struck. Eleanor looked down at the bag.
Rachel immediately wished she had not said them that way. Not because they were false, but because accuracy could still be cruel.
“I know you were scared,” Rachel said.
“You don’t know what I was.”
“Then tell me.”
Eleanor’s mouth opened and closed.
A customer passed within several feet, glanced at them, and kept walking.
At last Eleanor said, “I was afraid he would turn on me.”
Rachel stopped.
Her mother gave a small, embarrassed shrug. “There. Is that the truth you wanted?”
The hydrangea leaves trembled in the air from an overhead fan.
“Has he hurt you?” Rachel asked.
“No.”
“Has he grabbed you?”
Eleanor looked toward the parking lot.
“Mom.”
“Not in years.”
Rachel felt cold despite the heat.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he used to hold my wrists when we argued. Before you were born, mostly. Once after Daniel left for college.”
“You never told me.”
“What would you have done?”
“I would have known.”
“Known what?”
“That I wasn’t imagining him.”
Eleanor stared at her.
Rachel continued, “Every time he scared us, you explained him. You told us he was tired, worried, under pressure, trying to teach us. You made each thing separate.”
“I was keeping the family together.”
“You were keeping us near him.”
Tears appeared in Eleanor’s eyes, but her voice sharpened. “You think leaving is simple because you have never had to build a life from nothing.”
“I am not asking you to leave.”
“You are asking me to choose.”
“No. Dad chose when he put his hands on Lily.”
“That’s convenient.”
Rachel stepped back as though struck.
Eleanor closed her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No.”
“I don’t mean Lily caused this.”
“But you need someone besides him to have caused it.”
Eleanor’s shoulders sagged.
Rachel took the paper bag at last. Inside was not Lily’s sweater. It was the pale-blue cardigan Rachel herself had left at Eleanor’s house months earlier.
“This isn’t Lily’s.”
“I know.”
“Why did you lie?”
“I needed a reason to come.”
“You could have said you wanted to talk.”
“You blocked me.”
“Because you kept sending Dad’s feelings to me like assignments.”
Eleanor wiped beneath one eye. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“For once, don’t do it for him.”
She left without answering.
The temporary no-contact order was issued eleven days after the barbecue. Rachel attended a brief hearing by video from a private room at her attorney’s office. Frank appeared from another screen wearing a collared shirt she had given him for Father’s Day.
He looked older. That disturbed her more than anger would have.
His attorney argued that there had been no injury and no ongoing threat. Rachel’s attorney described the restraint, the use of the tongs, Frank’s refusal to accept responsibility, and Lily’s stated fear.
The judge asked Rachel whether she believed Frank might approach Lily despite police instructions.
May you like
“Yes,” Rachel said.
Frank shook his head.
