Chapter 9
ETHAN
Sunday’s casual meal had been arranged a week earlier. When I arrived at my parents’ house, my mother was changing the water in a vase in the entryway. Seeing me come in alone, she glanced toward the driveway.
“Nora didn’t come?”
“She’s with Claire today. I came for the meal as planned.”
She put the vase in place and dried her hands on a towel. “Vivian’s here too. Whatever you have to say, say it calmly.”
“Did you see that message?”
“I know why you’re here.” She lowered her voice. “Your aunt got Claire’s reply last night and called me first thing this morning. I’ve already told her to let you two handle your marriage yourselves.”
I stopped taking off my jacket. “Why didn’t you tell her to let us handle it ourselves when they were saying Claire was taking her anger out on a child?”
My mother looked at me, folding the towel into a very small square.
“Go on in.”
In the living room, my aunt and an old friend of my mother’s sat by the window. Two men were talking with my father. Vivian got up from the sofa and smiled at me. I couldn’t return it. I asked where Sam was.
“Upstairs, playing with the other children.”
Upstairs, the children were building tracks with a caregiver. I asked her to come to me if she needed anything, then shut the playroom door so they wouldn’t hear the adults downstairs.
My mother ushered everyone into the dining room, saying the food was almost ready. I stood beside the table without sitting.
“Before we eat, I need to make clear what happened at the hospital. Some of you received a message from Vivian. What it said about Claire wasn’t true.”
Vivian looked up. My mother rested her hand on a chair back. “Everyone knows you’ve been having a difficult time. Sit down, and we can?—”
“I’m fine standing.”
My aunt put away her glasses and waited. I reached for a water glass, then found it empty.
I put it back.
“Sam fell and hurt himself that day. His wound had been treated at the hospital. When we left, the nurse said he could go home. His grandmother was right outside, with a car. She’d also said she would stay that night to look after him.”
My mother’s friend glanced at Vivian. Vivian lowered her head and unfolded her napkin without speaking.
“Before her surgery, Claire told me she wanted me to pick her up myself and spend an evening at home with her. She said she didn’t want the driver to take my place. I understood her, and I promised.”
I paused. My father sat at the far end of the long table, his hand on the arm of his chair. Ever since I was a child, I’d hated explaining my failures in front of him. I hated this even more, with a roomful of people waiting to hear the rest.
“When I got to the hospital, she said it to my face again. She didn’t tell me I couldn’t look after Sam. She only wanted me to keep the promise I’d already made her.”
My aunt asked, “She told you then?”
“Yes. Vivian was beside us too.”
“I knew she wanted to go home,” Vivian finally said. “But I was really frightened that day.”
“She wanted me to go home with her. I understood that perfectly at the time.” Without looking at Vivian, I went on speaking to the people around the table. “I knew Sam had other people to take care of him. I still handed Claire’s bag to the driver and sent them on their way.”
No one spoke. Dishes clinked in the kitchen. My fingers were going numb from pressing into the back of the chair.
“I also told her she was stronger than Vivian.”
My mother frowned as if about to speak. I didn’t let myself stop.
“Then I ate at Vivian’s and took a work call from Dad. I didn’t get home until nearly eleven. I didn’t spend that evening with Claire.”
My father looked at me. I quickly added, “That call doesn’t explain away the hours before it. I could have gone home long before then.”
“Then why didn’t you?” my aunt asked.
My hand slipped from the chair back. In front of my father and all these people, I wanted to say I’d simply lost track of time. I heard Claire’s voice from last night instead.
“I thought she would understand in the end. I wanted to finish what was in front of me, then go home and make her feel better.”
My aunt’s lips moved, but no words came.
“She’d told me before that she wanted me with her, wanted me to do what I’d promised. Again and again, I thought a little later would be fine. She isn’t asking for a divorce because she’s jealous of a child.”
By the time I finished, the skin behind my ears was burning. Vivian laid her napkin on the table again.
“I never said anything about jealousy. I only wanted to protect Sam. I don’t understand how it turned into this. He asks why you aren’t coming. What can I explain to a seven-year-old?”
“The message you sent to friends and family wasn’t an explanation for Sam.”
“I need someone to talk to too.”
“Then why did you say Claire told me to stop making your arrangements?”
My mother touched my arm. Stepping aside, I caught the empty glass with my cuff and had to steady it.
Vivian’s eyes reddened. “Wasn’t it for her? If she hadn’t been making all this fuss about a divorce, would you have suddenly started treating us this way?”
“Don’t call it a fuss.”
She closed her mouth, then turned to my mother. Watching her do it made the heat in my chest rise higher.
“Claire doesn’t know your daily arrangements. I stopped my staff handling them. Sam still goes to class with his mother or grandmother. Why blame her?”
“Ethan, that’s enough,” my mother said.
“Who said enough when people were blaming her last night?”
After I said it, I saw my mother’s expression change. I didn’t raise my voice again, but my hand was still shaking. I put it in my pocket and waited for Vivian to answer.
My aunt spoke first.
“Your mother was at the hospital that day?” she asked Vivian.
“She was, but she kept blaming me?—”
“I’m asking whether she could have driven your son home.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you mention that in the group?”
Vivian tugged a corner of her napkin. “I wasn’t trying to write down every single thing that happened that day.”
“But what you did write was that Claire wanted a divorce because of an injured child.” My aunt’s face was beginning to redden. “And I forwarded it to her sister and asked her to try to persuade Claire. How am I supposed to face Claire now?”
“I didn’t ask you to forward it.”
My aunt pulled her bag onto her lap with a sudden, forceful movement. Vivian immediately said that wasn’t what she meant. They were all friends; she’d only said a few things because she was upset.
My mother’s old friend shook her head. “I joined in yesterday too. So she’d just had surgery herself, and her husband promised to be there, then wasn’t. I couldn’t stand that either.”
My father shifted in his chair, and the dining room went quiet again. Vivian looked at me, her lips pale.
“What else do you want me to do?”
“Correct it in the group where you posted the message. Tell them clearly that your original account was untrue, that Claire didn’t ask me to stop the arrangements and didn’t prevent Sam from being cared for.”
“You want me to admit in front of everyone that I lied?”
“They believed you in front of everyone.”
She didn’t move. I didn’t sit down. My mother looked from her to me, then finally said to Vivian, “You really can’t leave that statement as it is. Clear it up.”
Vivian typed, stopping to wipe her eyes. Once, I would have found a way to spare her this. I kept remembering Claire reading that message alone.
“It’s done,” Vivian said, turning the screen toward me.
It began, “I was upset yesterday and may have caused a misunderstanding.” I looked at her.
“They didn’t misunderstand.”
She pulled the phone back sharply and deleted the line. A little later, my aunt’s phone sounded. She opened the message and turned the screen toward me. It showed the correction posted in the original group.
“What I said about Claire yesterday was untrue. At the hospital, Sam’s wound had been treated, and my mother was there and able to drive him home and care for him.
Ethan knew he’d promised to be with Claire and still chose to take us home.
He later decided to stop the everyday arrangements himself.
Claire didn’t ask him to do that, and she didn’t prevent Sam from being cared for.
I shouldn’t have described her wanting a divorce as being angry with a child. I’m sorry.”
“Did you send anything to anyone privately?” I asked.
“No. Just this group.”
My aunt confirmed that she’d received it and set her phone facedown on the table. “I’ll apologize to Claire. Don’t ever put me in that position again, trying to persuade someone with a story like that.”
Vivian tried to take her hand. My aunt moved it to her water glass instead. My mother’s friend lowered her head and sent a message too, saying she would explain herself directly to Claire.
The meal was served after all. I could barely taste the food. My mother offered more to the others. As she passed me, she set the plate within my reach. No one praised me for doing the right thing. My aunt didn’t even ask how I’d been.
After the meal, Sam came down for Vivian, still talking about the tracks. She took a call from her mother about picking him up, gathered his things, and left with him.
I took my jacket and was about to leave when my father stopped me from the study doorway.
“Your mother invites people over for a nice meal, and this is how it ends.”
“Those things were being said in their group. I needed to set out the facts.”
“You’re the one those facts make look worst.”
I lowered my eyes, my hand still in my jacket sleeve. He wasn’t wrong. That hurt more than being blamed a moment earlier.
“I know.”
The admission didn’t soften him. He asked when I could give him a definite answer about being based overseas. Control of the group and the succession arrangements were tied to it, he said. He wouldn’t wait forever.
I finished putting on my jacket but couldn’t answer right away. Whenever he’d spoken to me in that tone before, I’d first assured him there would be no delay, then found a way to make everything else give way. This time, all I asked was, “When do you need an answer?”
He looked at me for several seconds without giving me a date first.
“Lucas is willing to go overseas.”
I lifted my head. For the first time, my father had offered my younger brother the path that had always been waiting for me.