Chapter Seventeen #3
Mother was already in the wing chair when Casey walked in.
I was standing by the mantel. Brittany was on the sofa.
A cup of coffee sat beside Mother, half-finished.
She had been there long enough to settle in.
She’d arrived early. She’d arranged the room.
The coffee, the chair, and the posture were all in place before Casey opened the door.
I’m only seeing this now because I’ve never thought about the way the confrontation was arranged before.
I’ve looked at what happened in the room but never at the room itself.
Brittany spoke first. The accusation came from Brittany about the hospital, the man, and the kiss.
Brittany delivered it in pieces, looking at the coffee table.
Her voice was rehearsed and thin. She delivered the pieces without conviction, without anger, and without the certainty of a sister protecting her brother.
I didn’t hear it that way at the time. I heard certainty.
I heard my sister telling me what she’d seen, and I believed her because why would Brittany lie?
Casey had rearranged her life to make room for me, and I’d been quietly expecting her to change her mind at some point.
Brittany seeing her kiss another man had confirmed what I’d been expecting.
I couldn’t imagine my sister lying about such a thing. She didn’t have it in her.
Except Mother was also in the room, already in the chair. Her coffee was already half-finished. The room was already arranged.
I’ve believed that story for four years.
I built my life around it, the empty penthouse, the treadmill, the divorce I never filed, and the refusal to look for Casey.
I structured everything around a version of events I accepted in ninety seconds and never questioned because I expected the marriage to implode and Casey to cheat. Experience has taught me well.
At dinner tonight, Brittany didn’t look at Casey. Four years ago, Brittany didn’t look at Casey either. She looked at the table. She looked at her own lap. She looked at Mother once in the very beginning, like a student checking whether the teacher had accepted the answer.
I’m no longer convinced Casey cheated. Realizing Casey had already been pregnant destroyed the meaning I’d imposed on her final sentence, and everything I’ve seen since has made Brittany’s accusation harder to hold.
I’m questioning something else now. I’m questioning how the accusation arrived, who built it, who delivered it, and why my sister looked at a coffee table instead of looking at me.
I should also question why I was so quick to believe it. I know why, but I’m not ready to dig into that barely covered wound.
Instead, I focus on that night, replaying it again without trying to discern my own motives for quickly believing my wife would cheat.
The house is quiet. It’s after midnight.
I walk the hallway because I can’t sit in the office anymore, because the office is where I’ve spent four years arranging papers and avoiding the question of why I arranged my wife out of my life on the say-so of a woman who was already sitting in a wing chair with coffee poured when my wife walked through the door.
I still desperately want to avoid questioning my why to explore Mother and Brittany’s.
Sienna is coughing. I hear it from the hallway.
It’s a small, wet sound of a four-year-old whose immune system is compromised.
I move toward her room. Casey is already there, on the bed beside Sienna, still in the clothes she wore at dinner, which were jeans and a T-shirt.
She never bothered dressing up for my mom or sister this time.
She’s asleep with her head tilted at an angle that will hurt in the morning.
She fell asleep partially sitting up against the headboard to ensure Sienna is angled for best breathing against her chest. One arm is extended across Sienna’s body, holding her close.
Bart is between them. Sienna is covered by blankets, but Casey is exposed to the air.
The dim nightstand lamp is bright enough to show chilblains on her skin.
I stand in the doorway. Sienna coughs again, smaller this time, and settles.
Casey doesn’t wake up. She’s exhausted. She’s been exhausted since she arrived, managing Sienna’s care, managing my mother, managing me.
She’s probably been exhausted for at least eighteen months, managing every day and every night Sienna has needed her alone.
She has spent eighteen months, or maybe an entire four years, being the person Sienna wakes up and finds.
I’ve done it zero times.
I go to the linen closet and out a blanket, the heavy one someone bought years ago that nobody uses because it’s expensive but ugly. Right now, it’s warm. I bring it back to Sienna’s room.
I put it over Casey. I don’t touch her. I arrange it carefully so I don’t wake her. Getting the corners right doesn’t matter. I do it anyway. Casey stirs without waking and pulls the blanket closer.
I go back to my office because there’s no point in going to bed.
My mind is too full of thoughts. The chair behind my desk faces the window, but I’m seeing my wife in a lavender bedroom, sleeping beside our daughter, handling everything because she’s been doing this alone since the night I told her to leave.
Mother was already in the chair, poised and arranged. Brittany didn’t look at Casey then, and she didn’t look at Casey tonight.
I don’t sleep.