Chương 7
“So don’t stand there pretending you’ve been watching every moment.”
“I’m not.”
“You have no idea what it was like.”
“No.”
She stopped.
Again, his agreement seemed to disorient her.
Daniel continued.
“I relied on you.”
“You abandoned the hard parts.”
“That’s fair.”
Margaret looked up.
Vanessa did not seem to know what to do with him.
Daniel said, “And none of that makes what you did okay.”
Vanessa looked away.
He let the silence stay.
A truck passed outside.
Margaret adjusted the cuff of her cardigan.
Vanessa finally said, “She was becoming obsessed with Emily.”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“She talked about her constantly.”
“She misses her.”
“She uses it.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
Vanessa saw it and pushed forward anyway.
“If she doesn’t want to do something, she gets sad. If she loses, she talks about her mother. If she wins, it’s because her mother is proud. Emily has become the answer to everything.”
“She’s a child.”
“She is also capable of manipulation.”
Margaret whispered, “She’s eight.”
Vanessa turned on her.
“You don’t get to pretend you weren’t saying the same things.”
Daniel looked at Margaret.
His mother went pale.
“What things?”
Margaret shook her head.
“Nothing like that.”
“Mom.”
“I said she needed routine.”
Vanessa laughed.
“You said Daniel was letting the whole house revolve around Emily.”
Daniel stared at his mother.
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“That was after the funeral. I was worried about you.”
“How is that relevant to hiding photographs from Lily?”
“It isn’t.”
Vanessa said, “It became relevant because nobody was moving.”
Daniel looked back at his sister.
“Moving where?”
“Forward.”
There was the word.
He had heard it from people for three years.
Move forward.
Move on.
Find a new normal.
As if grief were a hallway and everyone else had become impatient with how long he and Lily were taking to reach the door.
Daniel said, “You cut a ribbon off her trophy.”
Vanessa’s face flickered.
“Yes.”
“You put it in the trash.”
“Yes.”
“You told her winning wouldn’t bring her mother back.”
Silence.
Vanessa’s arms loosened.
Daniel repeated, “Why?”
“I was angry.”
“Why?”
“She was waving that thing around all morning.”
“She won it yesterday.”
“I know.”
“What were you angry about?”
Vanessa looked toward the windows.
Margaret said nothing.
Daniel waited.
Vanessa’s voice dropped.
“She kept reading the card.”
The answer was so small Daniel almost missed it.
“What?”
“She found it under the trophy after the meet.”
Daniel looked at the bookshelf.
The trophy was upstairs in Lily’s room.
Vanessa continued.
“She read it at breakfast. Then in the car. Then again when we got home.”
Daniel said, “So?”
“She kept saying Emily knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That she would win something someday.”
Daniel breathed out.
Vanessa rubbed the edge of her watchband.
“I told her that wasn’t what the note meant.”
Daniel understood something then.
Not everything.
But enough to make the anger change shape.
The card had existed for years.
Emily had written it when Lily was five, before she was sick enough to stop attending practices.
She had taped it beneath the cheap participation trophy from Lily’s first little-gymnastics exhibition because she knew Lily liked hiding messages inside things.
After Emily died, the note had stayed attached.
Lily had apparently transferred the ribbon from her new trophy around the old card that morning.
“She was happy,” Daniel said.
Vanessa’s eyes moved back to him.
“Yes.”
“And that bothered you.”
“No.”
“It did.”
“It bothered me that everything good has to belong to Emily too.”
The room went still.
Margaret whispered her daughter’s name.
Vanessa closed her eyes briefly.
When she opened them, the anger had gone out of her face, leaving something Daniel had not expected.
Embarrassment.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
Daniel did not rescue her.
Vanessa looked toward the family photographs.
“I was here.”
Daniel said nothing.
“For two years,” she continued. “I was here every day. I did the homework. I sat in that horrible pickup line. I learned which yogurt she eats and which one apparently tastes like medicine even though they are the same brand. I learned how to braid hair badly enough that she complains but well enough that it stays in.”
Margaret sat in the dining chair.
Vanessa’s voice shook once, then steadied.
“And Emily is still the one who gets to be perfect.”
Daniel stared at her.
There it was.
Not cruelty in place of love.
Cruelty growing beside love, fed by exhaustion, resentment, and a jealousy so shameful Vanessa had apparently spent months disguising it as discipline.
Daniel said, “She’s dead.”
“I know that.”
“Then stop competing with her.”
Vanessa flinched.
Margaret looked away.
Daniel wished he could take the sentence back, not because it was false but because it had been too clean.
Vanessa’s eyes filled instantly.
She laughed once, wiped beneath one eye, and said, “Congratulations.”
“Vanessa.”
“No. That’s what you wanted, right? The ugly answer?”
Daniel lowered his voice.
“I wanted the truth.”
“Well, there it is.”
She turned toward the hallway.
Daniel watched her go.
He felt no victory.
Margaret remained at the table.
After a moment she said, “Your sister loved Emily.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I know.”
“She loved Lily.”
“I know.”
“She’s been angry for a long time.”
“At who?”
Margaret folded her hands.
“You.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“That makes more sense.”
“Emily too.”
That surprised him.
“Why?”
Margaret shook her head.
“She would never admit it.”
“Try me.”
Margaret watched the hallway.
“Because Emily asked her for something.”
Daniel waited.
“Near the end.”
His stomach tightened.
“What?”
“She asked Vanessa to help you with Lily.”
Daniel looked away.
He knew that.
Emily had spoken to both of them during her final month. Daniel remembered Vanessa coming out of the bedroom red-eyed, refusing to discuss the conversation.
Margaret continued.
“Not just help.”
“What else?”
“She told Vanessa not to let Lily quit gymnastics.”
Daniel’s eyes returned to his mother.
“What?”
“Emily knew you’d probably pull her out.”
May you like
“I didn’t.”
“You talked about it.”
