Chapter 6 - THE PEOPLE WHO HAD HELPED HIM NOT SEE
The family divided before Daniel told anyone to choose sides.
His younger sister, Grace, chose Victoria first.
“She kept you functioning after Claire died,” Grace said over dinner at her Darien home.
Daniel had brought the letters.
Grace had barely looked at them.
“You were a wreck,” she continued. “Lily was tiny. The company was collapsing. Victoria handled everything.”
“She intercepted Claire’s mail.”
“We don’t know what she intended.”
“She deleted a counseling appointment.”
“Maybe she thought you didn’t want to go.”
“Why would she think that?”
Grace gave him a long look.
Daniel understood before she spoke.
“Because you complained about Claire constantly.”
The truth landed cleanly.
He had.
To Victoria.
To Grace.
To Simon.
To anyone except Claire.
Daniel had described his marriage as something being done to him.
Claire was demanding.
Claire resented his job.
Claire was impossible to satisfy.
He rarely mentioned the nights Claire brought dinner to his office.
The way she spent two years helping his mother through cancer treatment.
The fact that Claire had supported him while he bought out his father’s partner.
Those details did not fit the version of the story Daniel told when he wanted permission to feel wronged.
Grace softened.
“I’m not saying Victoria was right.”
“But?”
“I’m saying she may have believed she was protecting you from something you said you wanted to escape.”
Daniel looked down.
That possibility did not excuse Victoria.
It made his own part harder to ignore.
At home, Emma was packing.
Daniel found an open suitcase in her room.
“What is this?”
Emma continued folding sweaters.
“I’m leaving.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
Daniel corrected himself.
“I mean—I don’t want you to.”
“That is different.”
He sat on the chair beside the dresser.
“Why now?”
Emma folded another sweater.
“Because I should have left months ago.”
“For what?”
“For letting Mrs. Victoria speak to me the way she did because I was afraid if I left, Lily would be alone with her.”
Daniel felt ashamed.
“You should’ve told me.”
Emma stopped.
“I did.”
He looked up.
“When?”
“Three times.”
Daniel remembered complaints.
Victoria was impatient.
Victoria ignored routines.
Victoria removed Claire’s photographs from the nursery.
Daniel had heard grief underneath Emma’s words and assumed that was all they were.
“You thought I hated her because she wasn’t Claire,” Emma said.
“I did.”
“Sometimes I did.”
Her honesty startled him.
“But hate does not make everything untrue.”
Daniel looked at the suitcase.
“Please stay until I figure out a stable plan for Lily.”
Emma considered him.
“For Lily.”
“Yes.”
“Not for you.”
Daniel nodded.
“For Lily.”
Emma closed the suitcase but did not unpack it.
Then she said, “There is one more thing.”
Daniel waited.
“The Sunday Claire asked you to come at six.”
His stomach tightened.
“I was there.”
“At Claire’s house?”
Emma nodded.
“She made dinner.”
Daniel looked away.
“She waited.”
“I know.”
“No,” Emma said. “You know what the letter says.”
He looked back at her.
Emma’s eyes were wet.
“I watched her wait.”
May you like
And Daniel understood that Claire’s unanswered invitation had not hurt only the dead.
People still living had been carrying the memory for him.
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