Chapter 6: The Answer He Couldn't Take Back
The silence stretched until Lily broke it.
"Daddy?" she said.
"Why are you making that face?"
Daniel looked down at his daughter.
His throat moved.
"Go play in your room for a bit, sweetheart," Claire said gently.
"Just for a little while."
Lily looked between the adults, then at Ryan, then slid off her chair and padded out of the kitchen without argument.
Her footsteps went up the stairs.
A door clicked shut.
Ryan hadn't moved.
"Answer him," Claire said to Daniel.
Daniel pulled out a chair and sat down.
He put both hands on the table.
He looked at them.
"I was scared," he said.
"I was with your mother, and then I met Claire, and I—" He stopped.
"I made a choice I'm not proud of."
"You told her to get rid of me," Ryan said.
"I asked her.
She said no.
And I—" Daniel's hands pressed flat against the table.
"I walked away."
"And then you sent money so she wouldn't tell anyone."
"Yes."
Ryan looked at him for a long moment.
His face was very still.
"My mum used to tell me you were scared," he said.
"She said good people do bad things when they're scared." He tilted his head slightly.
"Are you a good person?"
Daniel opened his mouth.
"Don't answer that," Claire said.
Not unkindly.
But firmly.
"Not right now."
She stood up and walked to the window over the sink.
The garden was going dark outside.
She could see her own reflection beginning to form in the glass.
"Here is what is going to happen tonight," she said.
"Ryan is going to sleep in the spare room.
Tomorrow morning I am going to the hospital to meet Sandra.
And then the three of us—" she turned, and she meant all three of them, Daniel included, "—are going to sit down and talk about what comes next.
Not what you want.
Not what's convenient.
What is right for that boy."
Daniel nodded.
"And after that," Claire said, "you and I are going to have a very different conversation.
Just the two of us."
He nodded again.
Smaller this time.
Ryan was watching her.
"Why are you being kind to me?" he asked.
"I hjt your daughter with a brick."
"You were trying to get someone to open the door," Claire said.
"And you were right to try." She looked at him steadily.
"You didn't make any of this happen, Ryan.
You're just the one who had to live inside it."
Ryan looked down at the piece of paper on the table.
He'd been drawing a house.
Simple.
Four walls, a door, two windows.
A path leading up to it.
Claire saw it and didn't say anything about it.
"I'll make up the spare room," she said.
"There's a bathroom across the hall.
Help yourself to whatever you need."
She left the two of them at the table.
She didn't listen at the door.
Whatever Daniel said to his son in the next few minutes was between them, and it would not fix anything, and she knew that, and she walked upstairs and sat on the edge of her bed in the dark and let herself feel the full weight of the day for exactly five minutes.
Then she got up.
Made the spare room bed.
Found a spare toothbrush still in its packaging under the bathroom sink.
Set out a clean towel.
She knocked on Lily's door.
"Come in."
Lily was on her bed with a picture book, her bandage white against her dark hair.
"Is the boy staying?" Lily asked.
"Tonight, yes."
"Is he my brother?"
Claire sat on the edge of Lily's bed.
She smoothed the cover.
She thought about the right answer.
"He's your father's son," she said carefully.
"What that means for your family — we're still working that out."
Lily considered this with the seriousness of a five-year-old who senses that the adult answer is not the whole answer.
"He said sorry," Lily said.
"For the brick."
"I know."
"I think he meant it."
Claire looked at her daughter.
"I think so too."
She kissed Lily goodnight and turned off the light and stood in the hallway for a moment listening to the house.
From downstairs she could hear Daniel's voice.
Low.
Halting.
And then Ryan's.
Shorter.
Quieter.
She couldn't hear the words.
She didn't need to.
She went to the spare room and checked it one more time — pillow straight, towel folded, toothbrush on the shelf — and then she stood in the doorway and thought about Sandra Cole lying in a hospital bed, thin-voiced and careful, who had loved a man who asked her to disappear, and had raised his son alone for ten years, and had still told that son his father was a good person.
Claire didn't know yet whether she could be that generous.
But she knew one thing clearly, standing in the doorway of the spare room with the small house drawing still in her mind.
Whatever happened between her and Daniel, Ryan Cole was not going to sleep on a stranger's floor.
Downstairs, a chair scraped.
Then footsteps on the stairs.
Ryan appeared at the top of the landing, Daniel a few steps behind him.
The boy looked at the open door.
At the made bed.
At the folded towel.
He didn't say anything for a moment.
Then: "Thank you, Mrs.
Bennett."
"Claire," she said.
"You can call me Claire."
He nodded.
Went inside.
Sat on the edge of the bed.
Claire pulled the door halfway closed.
She turned to Daniel.
He was watching her with an expression she had never seen on him before and hoped she would never have to name.
"Get the sofa ready," she said quietly.
May you like
"You're not sleeping in our room tonight."
She walked past him without waiting for his answer.
