Chương 6
He laughed quietly.
“You came here.”
“I mean not like this.”
“How would you like to do it?”
“Privately.”
“My wife stays.”
Margaret’s jaw tightened.
Rachel saw it.
Daniel saw that too.
He opened the door another inch.
“Who?”
Margaret did not answer.
Daniel unhooked the chain.
Rachel said, “Daniel.”
He looked at her.
She shook her head.
He understood.
He stepped outside instead and closed the door behind him.
Rachel watched through the window.
Mother and son stood three feet apart on the porch.
She could not hear everything, only fragments.
Margaret: “...complicated.”
Daniel: “Name.”
Margaret: “...not fair to your father.”
Daniel: “He wrote it down.”
Margaret went still.
Daniel took out his phone.
He showed her the photographs.
Rachel watched control leave Margaret’s face.
Not panic this time.
Grief.
It surprised her.
Margaret touched the screen with one finger.
Daniel let her.
Whatever she read made her close her eyes.
For several seconds neither moved.
Then Margaret said something Rachel could not hear.
Daniel stepped backward.
Margaret reached toward him.
He moved out of reach.
She stopped.
When Daniel came back inside, his face looked different.
Not shattered.
Emptied.
Rachel locked the door.
“What did she say?”
He stood with his back to it.
“She said my biological father’s name was Thomas Keene.”
Rachel waited.
“I don’t know who that is.”
“She said he worked with Dad.”
“Is he alive?”
“No.”
“When did he die?”
“Twenty-one years ago.”
Rachel did the math.
Daniel would have been seventeen.
“Did you know him?”
Daniel looked at her.
“Yes.”
Rachel felt something shift.
“He came to our house.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes. He and Dad played golf.”
Daniel walked into the living room and sat.
“He gave me a baseball glove when I was ten.”
Rachel sat beside him.
“I hated it.”
“What?”
“The glove. It was stiff. He kept telling me it needed oil. Dad bought me another one later.”
Rachel waited.
Daniel stared at his hands.
“I went to his funeral.”
The quiet afterward was different from the other silences.
This one contained a dead man.
A man Daniel had known.
A man who had stood close enough to him to hand him a glove and never said who he was.
“Did he know?” Rachel asked.
“Mom says yes.”
“Did Charles know who he was?”
“Yes.”
“All along?”
Daniel nodded.
Rachel thought of the letters.
If you choose me, choose the life too.
“What happened?” she asked.
Daniel gave a short, exhausted laugh.
“She said she doesn’t owe me every detail of her marriage.”
Rachel looked at him.
“That sounds like Margaret.”
“She said she and Dad separated for four months before I was born. Nobody knew. They told people he was traveling for work.”
“And Thomas?”
“He was Dad’s business partner then.”
Rachel winced.
Daniel noticed.
“Yeah.”
“What happened after she got pregnant?”
“She told Dad. He came home.”
“Why?”
Daniel looked toward the kitchen.
“Because he wanted me.”
Rachel’s eyes burned.
She swallowed.
Daniel did not.
A tear ran down his face.
He wiped it away immediately, irritated by it.
“She said Thomas wanted to be involved at first. Dad refused.”
“Did Margaret?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel did not correct him.
Daniel leaned forward.
“Mom says Thomas changed his mind after I was born. Dad paid him out of the business. They stopped working together.”
“That’s a lot.”
“I know.”
“Did she tell you why she was so terrified I’d tell you?”
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“She says Dad made her promise.”
“That doesn’t explain the stairs.”
“No.”
“Did she apologize?”
He looked at Rachel.
“No.”
Three days passed before Emily gave her statement to the police.
She told Rachel afterward, not Daniel.
They met at a coffee shop halfway between their homes.
Rachel’s wrist was now in a molded brace. Her hip had turned purple down one side. Sitting hurt less than standing.
Emily arrived ten minutes late and ordered tea she never drank.
“I told them everything,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
Rachel looked at her.
Emily winced.
“That sounded awful.”
“A little.”
“I meant I did it because it happened.”
“I know.”
Emily folded the paper sleeve from her cup into a narrow strip.
“They asked if I thought Mom meant to make you fall.”
“What did you say?”
“That I couldn’t know that.”
“Same.”
Emily nodded.
“She called me this morning.”
Rachel waited.
“I answered.”
“How did that go?”
“She asked whether I was trying to destroy her.”
Rachel looked down at the table.
Emily continued folding the paper.
“I asked whether she pulled you.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was trying to stop you from leaving with something stolen.”
Rachel sighed.
“So yes.”
“Basically.”
“Did she talk about Thomas?”
Emily’s hands stopped.
“Yes.”
Rachel looked up.
“She told you?”
“Not before yesterday.”
“What did she say?”
Emily gave a humorless smile.
“That I should be grateful Dad was willing to raise Daniel.”
Rachel sat back.
“She said that?”
“Almost exactly.”
“How did you answer?”
“I asked whether Dad ever used the word willing.”
Rachel thought of Charles’s letter.
“Good question.”
Emily looked at her.
“You know what the worst part is?”
Rachel waited.
“I think she resented him for being better about it than she was.”
The sentence stayed between them.
Emily rubbed the edge of the paper strip.
“I remember things now. Little things. Mom telling Daniel he had Thomas’s temper once, then pretending she’d said somebody else. Dad getting furious. I thought it was about business.”
“Did Thomas spend time with Daniel?”
“Not really. He was around.”
“Did you know him?”
“A little.”
Emily looked out the window.
“He had a loud laugh. I hated it.”
Rachel smiled faintly.
“That’s specific.”
“It’s stupid.”
“No.”
“I remember his laugh but not what he looked like.”
“That sounds normal.”
Emily tore the paper strip in half.
“Dad cried after Thomas died.”
May you like
Rachel waited.
“I saw him in the garage. He told me a friend had died. I thought he was just sad.”
