Chương 4
Claire worked as a textile conservator, mostly for private collections and small museums, and she had spent years training herself to repair damage without making the repair pretend the damage had never happened.
She suddenly hated that metaphor before it even finished forming.
“Absolutely not,” she told the empty room.
Emma sneezed.
Claire laughed.
It came out wrong, half sob and half exhaustion.
“Yeah. Agreed.”
She fed the baby in the armchair by the window.
At 1:12 a.m., after Emma finally slept in the bassinet, Claire stood in the kitchen eating peanut butter from a spoon.
She had eighteen missed calls.
She listened to none of the messages.
Instead she searched her own mother’s name online.
Margaret Ellis Bennett.
There were photographs from charity events, Richard’s company dinners, foundation galas. Nothing useful.
Claire searched William and Margaret together.
Nothing.
She searched Margaret Ellis 1989.
Nothing.
She stared at the screen until the letters lost meaning.
Then she went to bed.
At 3:40, Emma cried.
At 5:15, Emma cried again.
At 6:02, Claire woke to find she had fallen asleep sitting upright with one hand resting on the bassinet.
For thirty seconds she forgot the ballroom.
Then she remembered all of it at once.
She made coffee.
At 8:17, Vanessa knocked on the front door.
Claire saw her through the security camera and considered pretending not to be home.
Vanessa wore oversized sunglasses, jeans, and a gray sweatshirt that said NORTHWESTERN across the front. She looked more like the twenty-two-year-old version of herself than the champagne-sequin woman from the night before.
She knocked again.
“I brought bagels.”
Claire watched on the screen.
Vanessa held up a paper bag toward the camera.
“And I know you can see me.”
Claire opened the door.
Vanessa stepped inside, removed the sunglasses, and said, “I look terrible.”
“You look fine.”
“That’s how I know I look terrible.”
Claire shut the door.
Vanessa glanced toward the bassinet.
“Is she sleeping?”
“For the moment.”
“I won’t touch her.”
Claire looked at her.
Vanessa lifted both hands.
“I know new moms get weird about germs.”
“New moms?”
“People on the internet told me.”
“You’ve been researching babies?”
“I have a niece now.”
“You had one yesterday.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
The sentence had landed harder than Claire intended.
Claire exhaled.
“Sorry.”
“No. You’re right.”
Vanessa put the bagels on the kitchen counter.
“I should have been here more.”
Claire reached for a clean mug.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s what I meant.”
They stood in silence while the coffee machine made a grinding sound.
Vanessa leaned against the counter.
“Dad hasn’t slept.”
“Richard.”
Vanessa frowned.
“You’re doing that already?”
“Doing what?”
“Calling him Richard.”
Claire poured coffee.
“He tried to throw me and my newborn out of the house last night.”
“I’m not defending him.”
“Then don’t correct me.”
Vanessa looked down.
“Okay.”
Claire waited.
Vanessa rubbed a thumbnail over the cardboard sleeve around her coffee.
“Mom told me some of it.”
Claire went still.
“How much?”
“That she knew William when she was twenty-one. That they were together. That he left for military training and she found out she was pregnant after he was gone.”
Claire said nothing.
“She said she didn’t tell him.”
“Why?”
“She wouldn’t answer.”
“Did you ask?”
“About fifteen times.”
“And?”
“She cried.”
Claire laughed without humor.
“Useful.”
“Yeah.”
Vanessa looked toward the bassinet.
“Dad kept saying it was ancient history.”
“Of course he did.”
“He also said William abandoned her.”
Claire turned.
“That’s not what he said last night.”
“I know.”
The sisters looked at each other.
For once neither had to explain why that mattered.
Vanessa continued.
“I asked him how William could abandon a baby he didn’t know existed. Dad told me not to be naïve.”
Claire sipped coffee.
Her hand trembled slightly, so she set the mug down.
“Did Mom say why she invited William?”
“She said she’d been thinking about it since you called. She had Melissa add his name to security without telling Dad.”
“Brave.”
Vanessa heard the bitterness.
“She knows it was too late.”
“Does she?”
“I think so.”
Claire walked to the window.
Outside, a neighbor was trying to persuade a large golden retriever to get into the back seat of an SUV. The dog had planted all four paws on the pavement.
Vanessa came beside her.
“There’s something else.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Of course there is.”
“I was helping Mom choose photographs for last night. For the display by the staircase.”
Claire pictured the rows of framed family photographs. Vanessa graduating. Richard cutting a ribbon. Margaret with both daughters at a lake house. Claire at sixteen beside a horse she had hated because Richard insisted riding taught discipline.
“What about them?”
“I found an envelope.”
Claire turned.
“In Dad’s desk.”
“What were you doing in his desk?”
“Looking for the key to the storage cabinet.”
“You just opened drawers in his study?”
Vanessa shrugged.
“He’s never cared when I do it.”
The sentence hung between them.
There were whole rooms in that house Vanessa had entered without permission that Claire had learned not to approach.
“What envelope?”
“It was old. Cream colored. Mom’s maiden name was on it.”
“From whom?”
“I didn’t see the front.”
“You just said her name was on it.”
“On the back. In Dad’s handwriting. It said Margaret Ellis, 1990.”
Claire’s pulse changed.
“What was inside?”
“I didn’t open it.”
“Why not?”
Vanessa looked genuinely surprised.
“Because it wasn’t mine.”
Claire stared at her.
“What?”
Vanessa gave a helpless little gesture.
“I know. Apparently I developed boundaries at the worst possible moment.”
“Did you tell Mom?”
“No. I forgot about it until last night.”
“Is it still there?”
“I checked this morning.”
Claire waited.
Vanessa shook her head.
“It’s gone.”
Claire walked away from the window.
“Did you ask Richard?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He said he didn’t know what I was talking about.”
Claire’s jaw tightened.
“Did you ask Mom?”
“She went pale.”
May you like
“Great.”
“But she said she didn’t know about an envelope either.”
