Chapter 8
Evelyn came for dinner two weeks later.
Rebuilding that relationship was harder than Claire’s romance with Gabriel.
There was no seductive mythology around an aunt who had abandoned you.
No dramatic salvation.
Only uncomfortable questions.
Why didn’t you call?
I was afraid.
Why didn’t you try harder?
I don’t know.
Did Mom ask about you?
Yes.
Did you hate her?
Sometimes.
Do you hate me?
Never.
Do I believe you?
Claire never asked the final question aloud.
Some nights she believed Evelyn.
Others she imagined twelve Christmases when her aunt could have called.
Forgiveness did not arrive like sunrise.
It came like Chicago spring.
Warm one day.
Freezing the next.
One evening Evelyn brought Claire a small cardboard box.
“I found this when I moved.”
Inside was a glass jar.
Buttons.
Green glass.
Wooden toggles.
Mother-of-pearl.
And one red strawberry.
Claire covered her mouth.
“I thought Dad threw these away.”
“He did.”
Evelyn smiled sadly.
“Your mother pulled them out of the trash.”
Claire began crying.
“She mailed them to me after I left.”
“Why?”
“She said someday you might want them.”
Claire held the strawberry button.
Her mother had been dead five years.
Suddenly she felt close enough to touch.
That night, she placed the jar on her bedroom dresser.
Gabriel stared at it.
“What is it?”
“My inheritance.”
He looked confused.
Claire smiled.
“Worth about twelve dollars.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because it’s mine.”
He understood.
Richard Mercer died eighteen months after the warehouse.
Not dramatically.
No revenge.
No punishment disguised as coincidence.
A heart attack in a rehabilitation center while awaiting sentencing.
Claire received the call at 6:43 on a Tuesday morning.
She was brushing her teeth.
The attorney spoke carefully.
“Ms. Mercer, I’m sorry.”
Claire spat toothpaste into the sink.
Then stared at herself in the mirror.
Nothing happened.
No scream.
No collapse.
She simply stood there in an old T-shirt with mint foam at the corner of her mouth.
Gabriel was downstairs making coffee.
Claire walked into the kitchen.
“My father died.”
Gabriel turned.
The coffee continued dripping.
“Oh.”
That was all he said.
Thank God.
If he had said good, she might have hated him.
If he had said I’m sorry, she might have hated him too.
Claire sat.
Gabriel pulled out the chair opposite her.
“What do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
“I hated him.”
“I know.”
“I loved him.”
“I know.”
“I wanted him to live long enough to hear the sentence.”
“I know.”
“I wanted him to apologize.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“He wrote letters.”
Claire looked toward the window.
“I never opened them.”
Gabriel waited.
“Now I can’t ask him anything.”
“No.”
She started crying.
“I thought I had time.”
Gabriel reached across the table.
His hand stopped halfway.
Claire looked at it.
Then placed hers inside.
At Richard’s funeral, there were twelve people.
Evan was not allowed to attend because of the conditions of his confinement.
Evelyn stood in the back.
Gabriel stayed outside.
Claire had requested that too.
She approached the casket alone.
Richard looked smaller dead.
That bothered her.
She wanted him to look like the man who had frightened her.
Instead, he looked like someone’s father.
Someone’s lonely old father.
Claire touched the edge of the polished wood.
“I don’t forgive you yet.”
The funeral director glanced away.
Claire whispered, “Maybe I never will.”
She swallowed.
“But I’m done waiting for you to become who I needed.”
Her eyes filled.
“I loved you.”
There.
The truth.
Not pretty.
Not empowering.
Not clean.
“I wish that had saved either of us.”
Then she walked away.
Outside, Gabriel waited beside the car.
Claire came to him.
He opened his arms only after she nodded.
She pressed her face against his chest.
Behind them, people carried Richard Mercer toward the ground.
No lightning struck.
No choir sang.
The city kept moving.
A truck changed gears on the nearby road.
Somebody’s phone rang.
May you like
A dog barked beyond the cemetery wall.
Life was offensively ordinary.
