Chương 5
Claire sat at the kitchen table.
For several seconds, neither sister spoke.
Then Vanessa said, “Do you want me to look for it?”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No. I’m not sending you through his study like we’re sixteen and trying to find car keys.”
“I’m thirty-two.”
“That doesn’t make it less stupid.”
“I can be subtle.”
“You wore a champagne gown to a family dinner.”
“It was a formal event.”
“You dress like a chandelier when you’re trying to be subtle.”
Vanessa stared at her.
Then she laughed.
Claire tried not to.
She failed.
The sound startled them both.
Emma made a noise from the bassinet.
Both women froze.
The baby settled.
Vanessa whispered, “See? She agrees with me.”
Claire wiped under one eye.
“Don’t make me like you today.”
Vanessa’s smile disappeared.
“You haven’t liked me in years.”
There it was.
Not accusation exactly.
Something sadder.
Claire leaned back in the chair.
“That’s not true.”
“It kind of is.”
“You make it difficult.”
“I know.”
Claire looked at her sister.
Vanessa’s eyes were red.
The Bennett family had always treated Vanessa’s confidence as natural and Claire’s reserve as temperament. Neither description had been completely true.
“What do you want from me?” Claire asked.
Vanessa thought about it.
“Nothing right now.”
“That’s not like you.”
“No.”
Vanessa picked at the corner of the bagel bag.
“I just want to know what’s true.”
Claire nodded slowly.
“So do I.”
At noon, Claire listened to Margaret’s first voicemail.
Her mother sounded composed for the first six seconds.
Then the composure failed.
Claire, please call me. I won’t ask you to forgive me. I know I don’t have the right. There are things I need to tell you, and some of them will make me look worse, not better. I should have told you years ago. I should have told William. I didn’t. Please let me explain when you’re ready.
Claire played it again.
Not because she liked it.
Because Margaret had said something unusual.
Some of them will make me look worse.
Richard never admitted anything unless the admission improved his position.
Margaret had spent years surviving beside him by becoming vague.
Maybe the specificity of her shame meant something.
Claire called William instead.
He answered on the second ring.
“Claire.”
“Are you busy?”
“No.”
The speed of the answer made her suspicious.
“What were you doing?”
A pause.
“Standing in my kitchen trying to decide whether a yogurt expired yesterday is meaningfully expired.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“You’re a general.”
“That has not improved my understanding of yogurt.”
She sat down.
“Did you know Mom was pregnant?”
“No.”
“Did she ever tell you?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“No.”
“Did you ever look for her?”
The pause this time was longer.
“Yes.”
“How hard?”
William did not answer immediately.
Claire appreciated that.
A liar would have said everywhere.
“I wrote,” he said. “For months. I called her parents’ house. Her father told me she didn’t want to speak to me. When I came back, I went there.”
“You went to the house?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Richard answered the door.”
Claire stopped breathing for a second.
“When?”
“Early summer. Thirty-six years ago.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Margaret was married.”
“To him?”
“Yes.”
Claire stood.
Her chair scraped across the kitchen.
“Did he say anything about me?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because if he had said she had a child, I would have asked whose child.”
“You might have assumed—”
“I would have asked.”
His voice sharpened.
Then he stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize. Just answer.”
“I would have asked.”
Claire walked toward the living room.
“Did you believe him?”
“I believed enough of it.”
“What does that mean?”
“He had a wedding ring on. He told me Margaret had chosen a different life and that showing up would cause trouble for her.”
“And you left.”
“Yes.”
“That easily?”
Silence.
Claire hated herself for asking the question and needed the answer anyway.
William’s voice changed.
“No.”
She waited.
“I sat in my car for almost an hour. Then I drove to a pay phone two towns away because I thought maybe her father would answer if the call came from somewhere else. He answered. He told me the same thing.”
“You tried once?”
“Twice that day. More before.”
“And then?”
“And then I stopped.”
Claire pressed two fingers to her forehead.
“Why?”
William inhaled slowly.
“Because I was twenty-two and proud. Because I had been told by her father and by the man I believed was her husband that she didn’t want me. Because my own letters had gone unanswered. Because I was leaving again soon and I told myself respecting her choice was the decent thing to do.”
Claire said nothing.
He added, “And because being rejected hurt, and eventually I used duty to make that hurt sound noble.”
The answer disarmed her.
She sat on the arm of the couch.
“You could have tried harder.”
“Yes.”
“You could have found her.”
“Probably.”
“You’re saying that very calmly.”
“I have had three weeks to say it to myself less calmly.”
Claire looked at Emma sleeping nearby.
“What did Richard look like?”
“What?”
“When he answered the door.”
Another pause.
“Gray suit. Blue tie. Too expensive for twenty-four.”
Despite herself, Claire smiled.
“That sounds like him.”
“He had more hair.”
“Everyone says that about men they dislike.”
William gave a quiet breath that might have been a laugh.
Claire’s smile vanished.
“There may have been an envelope in his desk. From 1990. With Mom’s maiden name.”
William went silent.
“Do you still have copies of the letters you sent?”
“No.”
Her disappointment was immediate.
Then he said, “But I have the ones she sent me before she stopped.”
Claire sat straighter.
“How many?”
“Seven.”
“Where are they?”
“In a box at my house.”
“Why did you keep them?”
William took time before answering.
May you like
“I kept a lot of things I should have thrown away.”
Claire looked at the bassinet.
