Chương 14
“I do not understand it.”
“Then sit with that.”
“I have been sitting with it.”
“For a week.”
He looked as if she had struck him. Clara regretted the sharpness but not the truth.
Victor placed his hands in his coat pockets. “I found a voicemail from Anna.”
Clara said nothing.
“It was old. Four years old. My assistant archived messages after she died.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“She said my mother had kept Ethan in the library after he cried during a family dinner. She asked me to speak with her.”
“Did you?”
“I told Anna that Margaret was strict and that we had both survived her.”
A dryer thumped unevenly inside the laundromat.
Victor looked down at the wet sidewalk. “Anna said survival was not the same as permission.”
Clara felt anger rise, then pity, then anger at the pity.
“You knew,” she said.
“Not what I know now.”
“You knew enough to ask.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t.”
“No.”
He did not defend himself.
The absence of defense made it harder to remain entirely furious.
Victor continued. “I am not asking you to forgive that. I thought you should know that my mother did not fool everyone. Sometimes we helped her by refusing to look.”
Clara tightened her grip on the envelope. “Why did Anna leave Ethan with her?”
“She didn’t, after that. Not alone. Then she died six months later.”
“And you forgot.”
“I buried almost everything she asked me to do.”
A man came out of the laundromat carrying a basket of sheets. He glanced at them, decided the conversation was private, and walked toward a dented sedan.
Clara said, “Ethan needs you to remember now.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Victor nodded. “All right.”
He began walking toward the black sedan at the corner.
“Victor.”
He turned.
“I’ll see him if Dr. Levin recommends it.”
Relief moved through his face, restrained but unmistakable.
“Thank you.”
“This is not for you.”
“I know.”
Clara gave him a look.
He corrected himself. “I understand.”
The supervised visit took place in Dr. Levin’s office on Friday afternoon. The room contained two armchairs, a low sofa, shelves of games, and a wooden dollhouse missing one shutter.
Ethan stood near the door when Clara entered.
For a second, neither moved.
Then he ran to her.
His body struck hers with enough force to make her step back. She held him securely, one hand against the back of his navy sweater. He buried his face beneath her chin and began to sob in short, restrained breaths that sounded as if he had been saving them for days.
Clara closed her eyes.
“I’m here,” she whispered.
“You left.”
“Yes.”
“Because I pulled it.”
“No.”
“Because I told.”
“No.” She drew back enough to see him. “You told the truth. None of this happened because you told.”
His lower lip trembled. “Grandmother says families don’t tell strangers.”
“Sometimes families need strangers to help them be safe.”
“Is she going to jail?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is Father going to lose his work?”
“I don’t know.”
“Everybody says that now.”
Dr. Levin, seated across the room, said, “It is an honest answer.”
Ethan glared at her with surprising force. “I don’t like honest answers.”
“Most people don’t when the answers are inconvenient.”
Clara almost smiled.
Victor remained in the hallway, visible through the glass panel in the door. He had agreed not to enter unless Ethan asked.
Ethan noticed him and wiped his face.
“Father sleeps on the floor now,” he said.
“That cannot be good for his back.”
“He makes noises when he stands.”
From the hallway, Victor looked offended.
Clara lowered her voice. “Old people do that.”
“I am forty,” Victor said through the closed door.
Ethan laughed.
It was a small sound, but Victor turned away as if he needed privacy from it.
During the visit, Ethan showed Clara a drawing of the globe. This time, the black planet had crooked rings. Three figures stood beneath it. The smallest had a mouth.
“What is he saying?” Clara asked.
Ethan shrugged. “Something.”
“That is not very specific.”
“He’s eight.”
“Fair.”
Dr. Levin watched without interrupting.
Near the end, Ethan reached into his pocket and gave Clara the ribbon.
“You keep it,” he said.
“Why?”
“So it doesn’t break anything else.”
Clara folded it into his palm. “The ribbon did not break the globe.”
“I pulled it.”
“Yes.”
He looked at her.
“An accident can still be your responsibility,” she said. “You can help repair what broke. But responsibility is not the same as being bad.”
Ethan stared at the ribbon for a long moment.
“Will you come home?”
Clara felt Victor’s presence beyond the glass.
“I don’t live there now.”
“You could.”
“Not yet.”
The words hurt him. She let them.
Dr. Levin had warned her not to make promises from guilt.
Ethan nodded once and put the ribbon back in his pocket.
After the visit, Victor waited beside the elevator.
“How was he?” he asked.
“You saw.”
“I saw part of it.”
“He is angry.”
“At me?”
“At everyone.”
Victor pressed the elevator button. “He has that right.”
“He also needs limits.”
“Margaret said that.”
Clara turned toward him. “Your mother does not own every useful word.”
The elevator arrived.
They stepped inside with a delivery worker carrying three boxes of printer paper. The man hummed quietly and looked at the floor numbers.
Clara said, “He should not decide every meal, every bedtime, or whether he attends school because you are afraid of upsetting him.”
“I’m not afraid.”
The delivery worker glanced at Victor’s face, then resumed humming.
Clara waited.
Victor exhaled. “I am a little afraid.”
“Good.”
“That seems unkind.”
“It is practical.”
The doors opened on the lobby. The delivery worker escaped without looking back.
Victor walked beside Clara toward the exit. “Dr. Levin suggested a gradual return to routine.”
“She is right.”
May you like
“He wants you included.”
Clara stopped near a potted tree whose leaves had been dusted but not watered.
