Chương 5
“Jenna had a family?”
“Yes.”
“Parents?”
“Her mother.”
“Children?”
“No.”
“Siblings?”
“A younger brother.”
“Did they think she disappeared?”
“Yes.”
Daniel put his head against the cool window.
For the first time since Claire appeared, he felt something other than rage.
Shame.
Not his own, exactly.
But shame had a way of ignoring ownership.
Somewhere for four years, another mother had wondered where her daughter had gone.
Daniel had visited Jenna Morales’s grave without knowing her name.
He had brought flowers there every December.
Lily had once left a drawing under the plastic cemetery vase.
A crooked yellow sun and three stick figures.
One of them buried above the wrong bones.
“Do you know where Jenna’s mother lives?”
Claire nodded.
“Phoenix.”
“You found her.”
“Yes.”
“Did you contact her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I wrote letters.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“No.”
Daniel looked at her.
Claire wiped beneath one eye with the side of her finger, irritated at herself.
“I wrote twelve letters,” she said. “I mailed none of them.”
Rachel checked her terminal again.
“Five minutes.”
Daniel took out his phone.
Claire straightened.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling my sister.”
Fear appeared on Claire’s face so quickly that Daniel almost missed it.
“No.”
He looked up.
“You really don’t get to say that.”
“Daniel, please.”
“My sister sat on Lily’s bedroom floor for three months because Lily woke up screaming for you.”
Claire’s face collapsed.
Not theatrically.
Her mouth simply opened, then closed.
Daniel found Leah’s name and pressed call.
It rang four times.
She answered sleepily.
“Hey. Everything okay?”
Daniel could not speak.
He looked at Lily.
He had called Leah countless times over four years. When Lily had a fever. When he needed someone to pick her up from school. When he locked himself out of the house. When the refrigerator broke. When he had a panic attack in a grocery store because he heard a woman laugh like Claire near the frozen vegetables.
Leah said, more awake now, “Daniel?”
“I need you to listen before you say anything.”
Claire turned away.
Daniel watched the back of her green coat.
“There’s a woman on the train.”
Leah was silent.
“What woman?”
“She says she’s Claire.”
Nothing came through the phone except faint static.
Then Leah laughed once.
It was the same wrong laugh Daniel had made.
“Okay.”
“She knows about Benny.”
Leah stopped breathing audibly.
Daniel continued before she could respond.
“She has the ring.”
“What ring?”
“Her wedding ring.”
“You buried that.”
“No. I didn’t.”
He had never thought about it.
The property returned after the crash had included Claire’s watch, fragments of her phone, a scorched wallet, one shoe, two earrings.
Not the ring.
He had asked the funeral director about it.
The director had said personal jewelry was sometimes lost during recovery.
Daniel had accepted that too.
Leah whispered, “Put her on.”
Claire turned around.
Daniel held out the phone.
She did not take it.
“Put her on.”
Claire stepped closer.
Her hand shook as she accepted the phone.
“Leah.”
Daniel heard his sister inhale sharply through the speaker.
Claire closed her eyes.
“No,” Leah said.
Claire gripped the phone.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Daniel almost smiled because Leah had chosen the exact words he had.
Then Leah started crying.
Not loudly.
Daniel wished she would scream.
Claire pressed the phone to her ear.
Leah said something Daniel could not hear.
Claire answered, “The blue bowl.”
Another pause.
“No, behind the cereal boxes.”
Daniel looked at her.
Leah had once hidden cash in a blue ceramic bowl behind cereal boxes because she believed her boyfriend was stealing from her. Claire had been the only person she told.
Daniel had forgotten the whole ridiculous episode.
Claire whispered, “You gave me half because you felt guilty after you found out he wasn’t.”
Leah made a sound between a laugh and a sob.
“Claire?”
Claire lowered herself onto the floor of the corridor.
Daniel had never seen anyone sit down that carefully.
“Yes.”
Leah began to swear.
Claire let her.
Rachel turned her face toward the window.
Daniel watched Lily sleeping.
He wished he could trade places with her.
Claire handed the phone back after less than a minute.
Leah was breathing hard.
“Daniel.”
“I’m here.”
“Is it her?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“She knew—”
“I know what she knew.”
Leah went quiet.
“What are you going to do?”
Daniel looked at Claire.
“Tell the truth.”
Claire’s eyes lifted.
Daniel continued.
“All of it.”
A station announcement came over the speakers.
Marlow Junction.
Rachel straightened.
“The conductor says two transit officers are meeting us on the platform.”
Claire stood.
For the first time, she looked toward the door at the end of the carriage.
Daniel saw the calculation.
Distance.
Doors.
Movement.
Escape.
He stood between her and the corridor.
Claire looked offended.
Then ashamed.
“I wasn’t going to run.”
“You looked.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Habit.”
That answer frightened him because he believed it.
The train began to slow.
Brakes whispered beneath the carriage.
Lily opened her eyes.
Daniel turned instantly.
She blinked at the ceiling, then at him.
“Daddy?”
“I’m right here.”
“Are we there?”
“Not yet.”
She rubbed her face against Benny.
Then she saw Claire.
Daniel watched confusion move slowly across his daughter’s features.
Claire did not move.
Lily stared.
Claire’s hands hung at her sides.
“Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“That lady looks like Mommy.”
No one answered.
Lily had seen hundreds of photographs.
Daniel had kept them around the house because he had feared the alternative more: that Claire would become an idea instead of a person.
There was Claire holding a newborn Lily.
Claire at the beach.
Claire asleep on the couch with one sock on.
Claire making pancakes badly.
Claire standing beside Daniel on their wedding day, silver ring visible against his black jacket.
Lily knew the face.
But a photograph could not breathe.
Claire took one small step forward.
May you like
Daniel raised his hand.
She stopped.
