Chapter 7: What Three Years Looks Like
He said yes.
Lily walked over to Claire with the necklace held out flat on both palms, the way she'd been taught to carry something fragile.
Claire knelt down.
She took it.
Her fingers closed around the pendant and she held it against her chest for a moment with her eyes shut.
"Thank you," she said.
"I kept it safe," Lily said.
"I know you did."
"I talked to it sometimes," Lily said.
"Is that silly?"
"No," Claire said.
Her voice was unsteady.
"That's not silly at all."
Daniel watched them from across the room.
Ruth came to stand beside him.
"You need to sit down," she said quietly.
"I'm all right."
"You're not.
Sit down."
He sat.
Ruth poured what was left in a champagne glass, set it in front of him without comment, and sat beside him.
"How did you know?" he said.
"The necklace.
The moment I saw it, I knew.
I bought it with her, Daniel.
We were in a little shop in Bath.
She spent forty minutes deciding between two chains.
She chose the shorter one because she said it would sit closer to her heart." Ruth looked at her hands.
"You don't forget something like that."
"Why didn't you ever tell me?
That the body hadn't been formally—"
"I tried." Ruth's voice was quiet.
"About a year after.
I raised it with you and you — you shut it down.
You told me you needed to accept it and move forward.
That the questions were making things worse.
I didn't push.
I thought I was being kind." She paused.
"I've wondered about that ever since."
"You couldn't have known."
"No." She looked at Claire and Lily, still on the floor together, Lily now pointing out something on the pendant to her mother with great seriousness.
"But I'm glad she came tonight."
Daniel was quiet for a moment.
"She looks the same," he said.
"She doesn't," Ruth said gently.
"But she looks like herself.
That's not the same thing."
He nodded slowly.
After a while, Lily stood up and said, very practically, "Are we going home now?"
Daniel looked at Claire.
Claire stood.
She pressed the necklace into her palm once more, then put it on, her hands moving behind her neck to fasten the clasp with the ease of old habit.
"I'm not sure that's — I don't want to overwhelm—" she started.
"You've been sleeping where?" Daniel said.
A pause.
"A bed and breakfast.
Near the station."
"How long have you been in the city?"
"Four days.
I wasn't sure I was going to come tonight.
I drove past the venue twice." She looked at him.
"I'm sorry.
I know this isn't — I know it's a lot."
"It's a lot," he agreed.
"But you're not going back to a bed and breakfast." He stood up.
"Ruth, will you take Lily to get her things from the coat check?"
Ruth held out her hand to Lily.
Lily took it.
When they were out of earshot, Daniel and Claire stood in the empty room, surrounded by untouched champagne and white flower petals and all the furniture of a wedding that had never finished.
"I thought about coming back so many times," Claire said.
"And then I'd talk myself out of it.
I thought you'd moved on.
I thought disrupting your life—"
"You're my wife," Daniel said.
She looked at him.
"I mean—" He stopped.
Started again.
"I know it's not that simple.
I know we have a great deal to work through.
I know three years of separate lives don't just disappear.
I'm not pretending tonight fixes anything." He paused.
"But you're my wife.
And you've been out there alone for three years because someone lied to you.
And I'd rather have the mess of this than have you spend another night at that bed and breakfast thinking you're unwelcome."
Claire looked at the floor for a moment.
When she looked up, her eyes were bright.
"I missed Lily's whole first year of school," she said.
"I know."
"I missed her losing her first tooth."
"She made me put it under a plant pot because she was afraid the tooth fairy would come in through the window in the night."
Claire laughed.
Just once, sudden and surprised.
Daniel smiled.
It was small.
But it was the first time his face had done that all evening.
"Come home," he said.
"Not forever.
Not to fix everything tonight.
Just — come home."
She nodded.
And when Ruth and Lily came back through the door, and Lily took her father's hand and then looked up at Claire and held out her other hand without being asked — Claire took it.
The four of them walked out of the venue together.
The champagne sat untouched on the tables.
May you like
The flowers would be cleared away in the morning.
But outside, under the cold night sky, the little girl was walking between her father and her mother, and she was swinging both their hands, and she was talking about the tooth fairy with absolute confidence.
