Chương 8
He had cried at his mother’s funeral.
He had cried when their dog died.
Daniel could count the times.
“What did Dad say?”
“That if I reported them, you might be taken from all of us while the state sorted it out.”
“Was that true?”
“I didn’t know.”
“And you believed him.”
“I wanted to.”
That answer was better.
Not noble.
Human.
Daniel sat again.
“Did Eleanor know?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“1995.”
“What happened?”
Susan looked at him.
“She reported it.”
Daniel went still.
“To who?”
“The county.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
Nothing was not possible.
Or maybe nothing was the most possible thing of all.
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“She sent copies of her records and a letter. She got a response saying the matter had been referred for review.”
“And then?”
“Howard contacted her.”
Daniel felt sick.
“What did he do?”
“Told her she could face charges too.”
“For what?”
“False statements. Fraud. I don’t know what was real and what was intimidation.”
“Did she sign something?”
“Yes.”
Of course she did.
Everyone had signed something.
“What?”
“An agreement saying she would stop challenging the record.”
“In exchange for?”
Susan looked at him.
“Claire and Tom agreed to send her photographs and updates.”
Daniel laughed.
It was a terrible sound.
“They bought her silence with school pictures?”
“No.”
“That’s what you just said.”
“No. Eleanor was broke. She was scared. She had relapsed again. She thought if she kept fighting she would lose even the possibility of knowing anything about you.”
Daniel walked outside.
Susan followed.
He stood beside the railing.
The neighbor’s sprinkler clicked rhythmically across a lawn.
“You all decided what was best for me.”
“Yes.”
“Every single one of you.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody thought maybe at eighteen I could decide?”
Susan rubbed her arms.
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“Claire asked me not to.”
“And that was enough?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“You were leaving for college.”
Daniel stared.
“You thought telling me I had another mother would interfere with orientation?”
Susan’s face tightened.
“When you were eighteen, Eleanor was using again.”
Daniel looked away.
There it was.
Every time he found a clean villain, someone handed him a messier truth.
Eleanor had not spent thirty-five years heroically waiting.
Claire had not spent thirty-five years coldly stealing.
Tom had not been merely complicit.
Susan had not been merely cowardly.
They had all been frightened people making decisions that became harder to undo each year.
And Daniel had been the one person denied the right to make any.
At the hospital the next morning, Eleanor was awake.
Daniel sat beside her.
“You reported them in 1995.”
Her face changed.
“Susan told you.”
“Yes.”
“She shouldn’t have.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“To what?”
“Tell you myself.”
Daniel leaned back.
“Everyone keeps wanting to tell me things themselves. Nobody actually does until somebody else forces them.”
Eleanor accepted that.
He asked about the relapse Susan had found.
Eleanor looked toward the window.
“It happened.”
“You made it sound like two bad days.”
“It was four.”
“Does the number matter?”
“No.”
“Were you unconscious?”
“Yes.”
“Needle on the floor?”
“Yes.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted you to like me.”
The answer struck harder than any defense.
Eleanor stared at her blanket.
“I know I’m supposed to say I wanted you to have the truth. And I do. But I also wanted you to look at me and not see the worst thing I ever was.”
Daniel said nothing.
She continued.
“I spent years imagining what I’d say if I saw you. In those versions I was always very dignified.”
“You’re disappointing in person.”
“Apparently.”
He smiled despite himself.
Eleanor did too.
Then she coughed until a nurse came in.
Daniel stood aside while the nurse checked her oxygen and listened to her lungs.
He watched Eleanor become a patient again.
That frightened him in a different way.
Time was not theoretical for her.
When the nurse left, Daniel said, “Why now?”
Eleanor understood.
“Cancer.”
“Just that?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“Your father.”
“He’s been dead eight years.”
“I know.”
“Then what?”
Eleanor looked at him.
“He wrote me a letter before he died.”
Daniel stopped breathing for a moment.
“What letter?”
“I didn’t get it until last year.”
“How?”
“Howard had it.”
“Howard was dead.”
“His daughter found it when she cleared his office storage.”
Daniel stared.
“You have it?”
“At my apartment.”
“Where?”
“Louisville.”
“You live in Kentucky?”
“Yes.”
He had assumed she was local because he found her twenty minutes from his home.
“What were you doing here?”
“Coming to see Claire.”
The answer rearranged the last week.
“You didn’t randomly collapse near that pharmacy.”
“I randomly collapsed. I was intentionally in town.”
“You knew where Mom lived.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I lived here?”
“No.”
“Then meeting me really was an accident.”
“Yes.”
Daniel laughed once.
Eleanor watched him.
“What?”
“I don’t know whether that makes this better or worse.”
“It makes it inconvenient.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the first day?”
“I didn’t know who you were.”
“The second?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“The fourth?”
“I was sure.”
“And you waited.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you were kind to me.”
Daniel frowned.
“That made you wait?”
“I wanted one more day where you were kind to me because you felt like it.”
He looked at her.
Eleanor turned toward the window.
“I knew once I told you, everything I did would become suspicious. Every question. Every cup of coffee. Every time I looked at you.”
Daniel wanted to deny it.
He could not.
He had already revisited all of those moments.
He sat down.
“What does Dad’s letter say?”
“I never opened it.”
He stared.
“What?”
“It has your name on it.”
“Then why is it at your apartment?”
“Because Howard’s daughter sent it to me. She thought I should decide what to do.”
“And you didn’t open it?”
“No.”
May you like
“Why not?”
“Because for once in my life I thought maybe something about you should belong to you before I touched it.”
