Chương 6
Lena read the last sentence twice.
“She turned me into a grant category.”
Ethan took the phone back. “I’ll have it removed.”
“It’s already copied everywhere.”
“I’ll still have it removed.”
“Were you involved with the foundation statement process?”
“No.”
“Usually?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
Priya looked between them. “What exactly do you do for them?”
Lena knew the answer, but at that moment she needed to hear Ethan say it.
“I oversee strategy and major gifts.”
“And your mother is chair?”
“Yes.”
“Can she fire you?”
“She can recommend it.”
“Can the board?”
“Yes.”
Priya opened the refrigerator, stared inside, then closed it without taking anything. “I’m asking because this is about to become both a family crisis and an employment crisis, and those two things are bad roommates.”
Ethan looked at Lena. “I don’t care about the job.”
“You will when you don’t have it,” Lena said.
“I have savings.”
“So do I. That isn’t the point.”
“What is?”
“The point is you don’t get to make another big decision because you’re angry and call it protection.”
He recoiled slightly.
Priya picked up her keys. “I’m going to buy food.”
“We have food,” Lena said.
“We have children’s yogurt and six kinds of mustard. I need an excuse to leave you two alone.”
The front door shut behind her.
Ethan and Lena stood in the kitchen, separated by an island covered in school permission slips.
“I’m not trying to manage you,” he said.
“You didn’t tell me your mother was investigating my health.”
“I was trying to keep her away from you.”
“You keep saying the same thing.”
“Because it’s true.”
“So is the result.”
He lowered his head.
Lena pulled the robe tighter. The house had become too cold, or she had.
“I asked you in April whether she knew,” she said.
“You asked whether I had told her.”
“And you said no.”
“I had not told her.”
“You let the narrowness of my question protect you.”
“That’s fair.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I mean your criticism is fair.”
“I know what you mean.”
He came around the island and stopped several feet away.
“I was scared,” he said.
The plainness of it unsettled her more than an argument would have.
“Of her?” Lena asked.
“Of everything. You were sick. The treatment plan kept changing. You couldn’t keep food down. Your insurance denied the anti-nausea medication the first time. I was trying to get you through each day, and I knew that if my mother found out, she would make it about whether she was being included. I thought if I gave her nothing, she would eventually stop.”
“She has never eventually stopped in her life.”
“I know.”
“No, you know and then behave as if you don’t.”
He looked toward the dark television screen.
When Ethan was upset, he became tidier. At Lena’s apartment he washed glasses that were already clean and straightened stacks of mail. Now he picked up the school forms and aligned their edges.
“I learned to survive her by withholding things,” he said. “I didn’t understand that I was doing it to you too.”
Lena sat at the table.
A child had carved the letter M into the wood with something sharp. Priya had circled it in blue marker and written NICE TRY beneath it.
“Did Daniel know I had cancer?” Lena asked.
“No.”
“He knew enough to discuss children and expenses.”
“He knew she suspected illness.”
“Who else?”
“My uncle Robert. Possibly two board members.”
She looked up. “Board members?”
“My mother said she needed advice about whether I was acting under emotional pressure.”
“You work for her foundation. You were marrying someone undergoing treatment. She discussed your judgment with board members.”
“I found out last week.”
Lena stared at him.
“Last week,” she repeated.
“I told her if she brought it up again, I’d resign.”
“But you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you had your final scan on Monday. Because your white count was low. Because every time I thought about telling you, it sounded like I was handing you one more thing to survive.”
She stood so quickly the chair legs scraped.
“You don’t get to ration my own life to me.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
“All right.”
“And stop agreeing like that makes it finished.”
His face tightened. “What do you want me to do, Lena? Defend it?”
“I want to believe you would tell me the truth even when you’re afraid the truth will hurt.”
“I would.”
“You didn’t.”
The room fell quiet.
Outside, a lawn mower started in the neighboring yard. The sound was steady and ordinary. Someone’s dog barked twice. A delivery truck stopped at the curb, brakes sighing.
Ethan placed both hands on the back of a chair.
“I should have told you,” he said. “I was wrong.”
Lena’s anger wanted more resistance. His admission left it with nowhere clean to go.
She walked to the window. A man in a red cap pushed a mower in overlapping lines across a bright square of grass. He paused to move a soccer ball, then continued.
“What happens now?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know.”
“About us?”
“I don’t know.”
He took that in without moving.
Lena touched the edge of the robe where it crossed her chest.
“I love you,” she said. “That’s not the same as being ready to marry you today.”
“I understand.”
She turned. “Do you?”
“No,” he said after a moment. “But I’m trying not to argue with it.”
That answer felt more honest.
Priya returned with soup, bread, and a cake decorated with blue frosting that read CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATE.
“It was half price,” she said. “We can scrape off the words.”
No one did.
May you like
They ate soup at the kitchen table. Ethan took three bites. Lena managed half a piece of bread and a spoonful of frosting. Priya complained about the bakery’s insistence on selling sheet cakes large enough to feed a regional conference.
At seven, Ravi returned without the children. He hugged Lena only after asking. He shook Ethan’s hand, then abandoned the gesture and pulled him into a brief embrace.
