Chương 9
She told him enough.
Not everything.
By the time she finished, Daniel was no longer leaning casually against the desk.
“If someone obtained credit in your name without authorization, you need your own lawyer.”
“I know.”
“Not Harrington counsel.”
“I know.”
“And you do not touch the foreclosure file.”
“I know.”
Daniel studied her.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep saying it.”
He ignored the irritation.
“Are you going there alone?”
“Yes.”
“Bad idea.”
“I’m not twelve.”
“That is unrelated to whether something is a bad idea.”
Emily opened her laptop.
Daniel did not move.
Finally she looked at him.
“I need to see the documents before I decide what this is.”
“You know what it is.”
“I know what Lauren says.”
“You believe her?”
Emily paused.
“I believe she’s scared.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
She closed the laptop again.
“I don’t know if I believe anybody.”
Daniel nodded.
“That’s probably the healthiest thing you’ve said this morning.”
At 9:12, Emily left the office.
At 9:58, the black town car turned onto Hawthorne Lane.
She had imagined this street in fragments for years.
In memory, the trees were larger.
The houses farther apart.
The driveway longer.
Reality had shrunk everything.
The Carter house needed paint.
One shutter hung slightly crooked.
The maple near the curb had been cut down, leaving a pale stump surrounded by old mulch.
Emily watched the garage door come into view.
Her chest tightened.
That roof.
That gutter.
The recycling bins were gone.
The driver pulled to the curb.
“You want me to wait?”
Emily looked at the house.
“Yes.”
She stepped out.
Before she reached the porch, the front door opened.
Linda stood there.
Her hair was almost entirely gray.
She had lost weight.
For one terrible second Emily did not recognize her.
Then Linda lifted a hand to her mouth.
“Emily.”
Emily stopped at the bottom step.
Behind her mother, the hallway looked exactly as she remembered.
The same narrow table.
The same framed mirror.
The same staircase.
Robert appeared from the living room.
He had aged more dramatically.
His shoulders had folded inward.
His face looked softer around the jaw and harsher around the eyes.
Neither parent moved toward her.
Then Lauren appeared behind them.
Emily recognized her immediately.
Lauren gave a small, nervous nod.
And behind her stood a tall teenage boy Emily had never met.
He had Noah’s eyes.
He stared at Emily for several seconds before saying quietly, “Aunt Em?”
Emily could not answer immediately.
The boy in front of her had Noah’s dark hair, Lauren’s mouth, and the same serious crease between his eyebrows that appeared whenever he was trying to understand something adults had made unnecessarily complicated.
“You got tall,” Emily said.
It was a stupid thing to say.
Noah looked down at himself as if checking.
“Yeah.”
Lauren gave a nervous laugh.
“He does that.”
No one else joined her.
Emily stepped into the house.
The smell reached her first.
Coffee.
Furniture polish.
The faint dusty warmth of forced-air heat.
Seven years vanished and returned all at once in her body, not as memory but as tension along her shoulders.
Linda moved aside.
“You can take your coat off.”
“I’m fine.”
Robert stood near the entrance to the living room.
He looked toward the window, then at the town car outside.
“That yours?”
“The car?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Robert’s mouth tightened slightly.
Emily knew the expression.
He had wanted the answer to be yes so he could resent it properly.
“It’s a company car,” she said.
Lauren looked at Robert.
“Can we not?”
“I asked a question.”
“You always ask questions that aren’t questions.”
Robert turned toward her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you know what it means.”
Noah glanced between them.
Emily looked at him.
“You have school?”
“Teacher institute day.”
“Of course it is,” Lauren muttered.
Noah gave his mother a look.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Emily almost smiled.
The family had changed and had not changed at all.
Linda gestured toward the dining room.
“I made coffee.”
“I don’t need coffee.”
“You used to drink coffee.”
“I still do.”
“Then have some.”
Emily looked at her.
Linda’s hands were clasped tightly in front of her abdomen.
The offer was not about coffee.
“Okay.”
They moved into the dining room.
The table was the same oak table where Emily had signed the Sterling Capital forms at nineteen.
She stopped beside it.
Linda noticed.
Her face changed.
“You remember.”
Emily ran two fingers lightly over the scarred edge.
“One of the legs used to wobble.”
“It still does.”
Robert pulled out a chair.
“I keep meaning to fix it.”
Emily looked at him.
He seemed to hear the uselessness of the sentence after saying it.
Lauren sat beside Noah.
Linda poured coffee into a mug decorated with faded red apples.
Emily remembered that mug too.
She hated that.
“So,” Robert said.
Emily put both hands flat on the table.
“The documents.”
Robert exhaled through his nose.
“We haven’t seen you in seven years.”
“I didn’t come for a reunion.”
Linda flinched.
Lauren stared at the table.
Noah looked at Emily openly.
Robert sat back.
“You always did know how to make an entrance.”
Emily almost answered.
Instead, she reached into her bag and placed a legal pad on the table.
Robert’s eyes followed it.
“Where are the documents?”
“In the basement.”
“Bring them up.”
Robert’s jaw tightened.
“This is still my house.”
Emily looked at him.
“For another day, maybe.”
Linda whispered, “Emily.”
Emily heard the cruelty after it left her mouth.
She disliked herself for enjoying it for half a second.
Noah looked down.
Emily closed the legal pad.
“That was unnecessary.”
Robert gave a humorless smile.
“At least you admit it.”
“I’m not here to trade insults.”
“No, you’re here to inspect us.”
“I’m here because my name was used on a loan I didn’t authorize.”
“I told you, I handled it.”
“That sentence means nothing.”
May you like
“It means you weren’t harmed.”
Emily stared at him.
