Chương 14
Julian closed the box.
“Why keep it?”
She considered several answers.
Evidence.
Reminder.
Punishment.
None felt complete.
“Because throwing it away seemed like pretending it had been an isolated bad idea,” she said. “It was not isolated. It grew from habits I had defended for years.”
Julian looked at the uniform again.
“Do you still think the test was necessary?”
“No.”
“Do you think we would have learned the truth without it?”
“Perhaps not then.”
“So was it worth it?”
Eleanor leaned against the doorframe.
“No.”
He waited.
She continued.
“Something can produce useful truth and still be wrong.”
Julian’s fingers tightened around the box.
“I’ve been talking to Chloe.”
Eleanor remained still.
“How often?”
“Once every few weeks.”
“Do you plan to see her?”
“I already have.”
The old instinct rose immediately: Where? Why? What did she say? Is she asking for money? Has she changed?
Eleanor folded her hands.
“How was it?”
Julian noticed the question she chose.
“Sad,” he said. “Better than before.”
“Do you want to reconcile?”
“I don’t know.”
Eleanor nodded.
“She’s in therapy,” he continued. “She has a job in Phoenix. She’s paying down the debt. She apologized to Mrs. Alvarez again.”
“Did Mrs. Alvarez answer?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Julian’s eyebrows rose.
Eleanor corrected herself.
“Not good. I mean Mrs. Alvarez is entitled not to answer.”
“Yes.”
He placed the wig box back on the shelf.
“If I tried again with Chloe, could you live with it?”
Eleanor looked at the stained uniform.
The truthful answer arrived before the acceptable one.
“I would be afraid.”
“Of her?”
“Of what you might ignore because you miss her. Of what she might conceal because she fears losing you. Of what I might do because I believe fear gives me authority.”
Julian said nothing.
Eleanor turned toward him.
“But I could live with being afraid.”
“That isn’t approval.”
“No.”
“Would you try?”
“Yes.”
“Without tests?”
“Yes.”
“Without background checks?”
“She has already had several.”
“Mom.”
“Yes. Without new ones.”
“Without asking Martin to review every text message?”
“I have never asked Martin to review your text messages.”
“You thought about correcting the wording.”
“I did.”
Julian laughed softly.
“I’m not saying I’ll take her back.”
“I understand.”
“I’m saying the decision is mine.”
“Yes.”
“And if it goes badly?”
“I will not say I warned you.”
“You will think it.”
“I cannot promise neurological reform.”
He smiled.
They stood in the small room where he had once slept beneath model airplanes suspended from the ceiling. The hooks remained, though the airplanes were gone.
Julian reached past the uniform and took down an old navy coat.
“This is mine.”
“You left it.”
“Twenty years ago.”
“It remained yours.”
He tried it on. The sleeves ended several inches above his wrists.
Eleanor looked at him and remembered his first winter at boarding school, when he had refused to admit the coat was too small because Thomas had bought it during their last trip together before an overseas deployment.
The memory came with the smell of cedar from the closet and the faint scrape of the zipper.
Julian removed the coat.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He waited.
“No,” she said. “But I will be.”
He placed the coat over his arm.
They carried the maid’s uniform downstairs.
Eleanor expected him to suggest throwing it away.
Instead, he filled the laundry sink with warm water.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Trying again.”
“The stains are set.”
“Probably.”
“You cannot scrub dried soil out of that fabric without damaging it.”
“Then it gets damaged.”
He poured detergent into the water.
Too much.
Eleanor reached for the bottle, then stopped.
Foam climbed quickly along the sides of the sink.
Julian looked at it.
“That seems excessive.”
“It is.”
“You could have warned me.”
“You asked for no tests.”
“That was not a test.”
“It was an opportunity for independent judgment.”
He splashed a small handful of suds toward her.
Eleanor stared at the wet spots on her sweater.
Julian’s smile disappeared.
“Sorry.”
She dipped two fingers into the sink and flicked water at his face.
He blinked.
“That was childish,” he said.
“Yes.”
He splashed her again.
Within seconds, there was water on the counter, on the floor, and across the front of Julian’s shirt. Eleanor began laughing before she could decide whether the behavior was dignified. Julian used a towel to block her next attack and knocked the detergent bottle into the sink.
They stopped.
The bottle floated on its side amid the foam.
“This is why staff resign,” Julian said.
Eleanor leaned against the counter, trying to catch her breath.
“Denise will kill us.”
“You own the house.”
“That has never impressed Denise.”
They cleaned the floor together.
The uniform soaked overnight.
In the morning, the gray stain remained.
It was lighter, perhaps, though Eleanor could not be sure.
She hung it outside in the sun.
Julian stood beside her on the terrace, holding two cups of coffee. Beyond the lawn, the trees had begun turning at their edges. A groundskeeper drove a small utility cart along the far path, paused to adjust a loose gate, and continued without looking toward the house.
Eleanor accepted a cup.
It contained black coffee.
“You remembered,” she said.
“I usually do.”
They watched the uniform move in the breeze.
Without the wig, the glasses, or a frightened woman inside it, it was only cloth—faded, imperfectly cleaned, and no longer able to prove anything.
Julian took a sip.
“I’m going to Arizona next month.”
Eleanor looked at the lawn instead of him.
“To see Chloe?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Three days.”
She nodded.
A dozen questions crowded behind her teeth.
She asked only one.
“Will you call when you get home?”
Julian considered it.
“Yes.”
Eleanor believed him.
The breeze lifted the white apron and let it fall again. Somewhere inside the house, a door closed. The chandelier in the foyer gave a faint glass tremor as the air shifted through the rooms.
May you like
Eleanor stood beside her son without a disguise, without a recorder, and without knowing what he would decide.
For once, she let the uncertainty remain where it belonged.
