Chương 2
“No.”
The word changed the room more than shouting would have.
Vanessa’s fingers tightened around the leather handles.
Daniel stood again.
“You’re going to pack a bag.”
Margaret turned from the window.
Vanessa gave a small laugh, the kind she used when a waiter made a mistake she believed was too foolish to deserve anger.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am.”
“This is my home too.”
“It isn’t.”
“I have lived here for almost two years.”
“You have stayed here for almost two years.”
“Because you asked me to.”
Daniel did not answer immediately.
That part was true.
After Emily died, Daniel had discovered that grief had practical requirements nobody mentioned at funerals. Children still needed breakfast. Lunches needed packing. Gymnastics practice happened whether a widower had slept or not. Permission forms disappeared into backpacks. Socks vanished. The dentist expected someone to remember appointments.
Daniel had returned to work six weeks after the funeral because six weeks was what he had been able to take without damaging a career he and Emily had spent a decade building their lives around.
Vanessa had begun by coming over three afternoons a week.
Then five.
Then she had started sleeping in the guest room when Daniel traveled.
Eventually a suitcase became drawers, drawers became half the closet, and half the closet became an assumption nobody had formally discussed.
Daniel had been grateful.
He had also been tired.
Those two things had helped him ignore more than he wanted to admit.
Vanessa looked at him now as though she could see the hesitation arrive.
“So,” she said, “now we’re rewriting history.”
“No.”
“You begged me for help.”
“I did.”
“And I gave it.”
“You did.”
“I rearranged my entire life for you.”
Daniel nodded once.
“Yes.”
Vanessa blinked.
It was not the answer she had prepared to fight.
Daniel continued. “And that still doesn’t give you permission to do this.”
He gestured toward Lily.
Vanessa glanced down.
Lily immediately hid the trophy behind her forearm.
Daniel saw it.
Something inside him became cold.
“How many times?”
Vanessa frowned. “What?”
He looked at Lily.
Not Vanessa.
“How many times has Aunt Vanessa done something like this?”
Lily stared at the rug.
Vanessa said, “Don’t interrogate her.”
Daniel’s eyes lifted.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
Margaret whispered, “Daniel.”
He ignored her.
Lily rubbed one sneaker against the other.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel’s stomach dropped.
Not no.
I don’t know.
He sat on the edge of the sofa so he was closer to her height.
“Okay.”
Vanessa exhaled sharply.
“This is absurd.”
Daniel held up one hand without looking at her.
Lily’s fingers moved over the little metal gymnast on top of the trophy.
“She threw away my blue ribbon once.”
Margaret shut her eyes.
Daniel said, “When?”
“I got it out.”
“When, Lil?”
Lily shrugged.
“A while ago.”
“Why did she throw it away?”
Vanessa stepped forward. “Because her room was a disaster and I told her anything left on the floor—”
“It wasn’t on the floor,” Lily said.
The interruption was so soft Vanessa almost talked over it.
Daniel did not.
Lily stared at the trophy.
“It was on my desk.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“I am not standing here while an eight-year-old puts me on trial.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Then go pack.”
“Daniel.”
“Now.”
Vanessa stood very still.
Margaret moved first.
“I’ll help you.”
Vanessa stared at her mother.
Margaret still held the folded grocery receipt. She looked down at it, seemed to realize it was in her hand, and placed it on the kitchen counter.
“Just for tonight,” Margaret said. “Come stay with me.”
Vanessa’s laugh was thin.
“You too?”
Margaret didn’t answer.
That hurt Vanessa more than Daniel’s anger.
She turned, walked toward the hallway, and stopped beside Lily.
For a second Daniel thought she might apologize.
Instead she said, “You got what you wanted.”
Daniel was on his feet before he realized he had moved.
“Don’t.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“Do not put this on her.”
“I didn’t.”
“You just did.”
Vanessa’s chin lifted.
Daniel pointed toward the hallway.
“Pack.”
She left.
A bedroom door closed a little too hard.
Lily flinched.
Daniel saw that too.
He sat back down.
The bright room seemed suddenly full of evidence.
The scissors on the table.
The trash bin out of place.
Vanessa’s handbag on the floor.
Lily’s dirty knees.
Margaret standing with both arms folded around herself.
Daniel looked at his mother.
“How long?”
Margaret’s eyes moved toward the hallway.
“Daniel.”
“How long has this been happening?”
“I didn’t know about this.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Margaret sat slowly in the dining chair Vanessa had been using.
She was sixty-two, but at that moment she looked older to Daniel. Her silver-blonde bob had shifted behind one ear. She smoothed it automatically.
“She’s been hard on Lily.”
Daniel waited.
Margaret looked down.
“Too hard, sometimes.”
“How long?”
“I thought she was trying to help.”
“How long, Mom?”
Margaret swallowed.
“Months.”
Lily made herself very busy wiping the trophy with the hem of her uniform.
Daniel saw her do it.
He lowered his voice.
“What did you see?”
Margaret rubbed her thumb over the side of her index finger.
“Vanessa tells her not to cry.”
“That’s not—”
“All the time.”
Daniel stopped.
Margaret glanced at Lily.
“If Lily gets upset about Emily, Vanessa tells her she’s old enough to control herself.”
Lily’s shoulders rose.
Margaret continued anyway.
“She put some of Emily’s photographs away.”
Daniel looked toward the wall.
Three framed photographs hung above the console table.
He had never noticed that there used to be five.
“Which ones?”
Margaret’s expression answered before her words did.
“The one from the beach. And the Christmas picture.”
Daniel remembered both.
Emily in a red knit hat, laughing because Lily had dumped powdered sugar down the front of her sweater while they made cookies.
Emily holding three-year-old Lily on a windy beach, both of them squinting into the sun.
“Where are they?”
May you like
“I don’t know.”
From the hallway came the scrape of a drawer.
