Chương 6
Daniel looked down.
Emily’s voice sharpened.
“She hired someone to investigate me.”
“I know.”
“She kicked a wheelchair into me while I was holding our daughter.”
“I know.”
“And you helped her.”
His head came up.
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t tell her anything.”
“You believed enough to investigate me yourself.”
Daniel flinched.
Emily saw it.
Good, she thought.
Then hated herself for thinking it.
“Em, I was wrong.”
“Yes.”
“I know that.”
“You knew it yesterday too.”
He was silent.
Lucy made a small sound from the bassinet.
Both of them stopped.
Emily looked over.
The baby settled.
Daniel whispered, “I’ll make lunch.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You should eat.”
“Please don’t tell me what I should do.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
He left.
Emily sat again.
Five minutes later she smelled toast.
He had made lunch anyway.
She was furious.
She ate two pieces.
On Sunday morning, Margaret called.
Emily watched the phone ring.
MARGARET CARTER appeared on the screen.
Daniel was across the kitchen warming a bottle.
He looked at the phone.
Emily answered.
“Hello.”
Margaret spoke immediately.
“We need to resolve this before it becomes uglier.”
Emily almost admired the sentence.
Margaret could make a request sound like a weather warning.
“It became ugly when you kicked furniture into me.”
“I should not have done that.”
Emily waited.
Margaret continued.
“I was upset.”
“That’s not an apology.”
“I am trying to explain.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
Silence.
Daniel watched Emily.
Margaret said, “Is Daniel there?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to speak to him.”
“No.”
Another silence.
Margaret lowered her voice.
“Emily, you have succeeded in putting my son in an impossible position.”
Emily laughed.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The real reason you called.”
“I called because this family cannot survive if every mistake becomes a criminal matter.”
“Your family survived private investigators.”
“That is different.”
“How?”
“I was protecting my son.”
Emily looked at Daniel.
He closed his eyes.
“From me.”
“From uncertainty.”
Emily almost smiled.
Daniel had used the same word.
Mother and son.
Different methods.
Same instinct.
Control the uncertainty.
“What do you want, Margaret?”
“I want you to tell the police this was an accident.”
“No.”
Margaret inhaled.
“I will pay any medical expense.”
“The hospital already has my insurance.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t be childish.”
Daniel put the bottle down.
Emily raised one hand.
He stayed where he was.
“Margaret.”
“Yes?”
“If you ever call me childish again after kicking a wheelchair into a woman who gave birth three days earlier, I will record the sentence and play it at every family Christmas until one of us dies.”
Daniel’s mouth twitched.
There was a pause.
Margaret said, “You always make jokes when you don’t have an argument.”
“No. I make jokes when the argument is too obvious to need help.”
“Put Daniel on.”
“No.”
“Emily.”
“Goodbye.”
She ended the call.
Daniel exhaled.
“That was impressive.”
“Don’t.”
“Right.”
Emily set down the phone.
“You use the same language.”
“What?”
“Uncertainty.”
Daniel leaned against the counter.
Emily looked at him.
“She said she was protecting you from uncertainty.”
He said nothing.
“You said you bought the DNA test because you couldn’t tolerate uncertainty.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“She taught you that.”
He looked toward the window.
“I guess.”
“No.”
Emily folded her arms.
“You don’t get to guess.”
Daniel picked at the corner of the bottle label.
A strange little habit.
He had done it during their first mortgage signing too.
“When my dad left,” he said, “everything in our house became about information.”
Emily waited.
Daniel rarely spoke about his father.
“He didn’t just leave my mother. He’d been moving money for months. He had another apartment. Another phone. He was planning it while we were all eating dinner together.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
Emily leaned against the counter.
“He disappeared for three days. Mom thought something had happened to him. Then an attorney called.”
Daniel peeled more label.
“She started checking everything after that. Credit cards. Mail. Who called. Where we went. My brother hated it. I learned to tell her everything before she could ask.”
Emily watched him.
“She made surveillance feel like safety.”
“Yes.”
“And you brought that into our marriage.”
His eyes met hers.
“Yes.”
That answer hurt differently.
Because it was true.
Emily said, “I brought things too.”
“Boston.”
“Yes.”
Daniel put the bottle down.
“You were ashamed.”
“That doesn’t make lying okay.”
“No.”
“I didn’t lie about Lucy.”
“I know.”
“But I did decide which version of me you were allowed to marry.”
Daniel was quiet.
Emily looked at the floor.
“I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Neither do I.”
It was the first conversation they had had since the hospital that did not feel like a trial.
Neither tried to finish it.
Lucy cried.
Daniel picked her up.
Emily watched him sway gently across the kitchen, murmuring nonsense.
For a few minutes they were only tired parents.
That almost felt harder.
The police contacted Margaret on Monday.
She hired an attorney before speaking with them.
Emily learned this because Daniel’s brother, Michael, called.
Michael was thirty-three, lived in Denver, and possessed the family gift for understatement.
“So,” he said, “Mom assaulted a postpartum woman in a hospital.”
Emily sat on the sofa with Lucy sleeping beside her in the bassinet.
“That is one description.”
“I had ‘finally joined a cult’ on my family crisis bingo card, but apparently I aimed low.”
Emily laughed.
Then winced because her hip still hurt.
“How did you hear?”
“She called me.”
“Of course.”
“She says the chair moved farther than expected.”
Emily stared at the wall.
“That may be my favorite defense so far.”
“She also says Daniel grabbed her.”
“He stopped her from pointing in my face.”
“That sounds like Daniel.”
Emily hesitated.
“Did you know she hired an investigator?”
Silence.
Michael sighed.
“Not before Daniel told me.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
“So before the hospital.”
May you like
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
