Chapter 6: Dinner at the Table
Conrad said yes.
He said it quietly, and Thomas nodded as if the matter were settled, and walked back to the sitting room.
Conrad looked at me.
"You don't have to," I said.
"I want to," he said.
"If that's allowed."
It was a strange word.
*Allowed.* But I understood what he meant by it.
He was asking whether he had forfeited the right, and he was asking me to be the one to answer.
"It's allowed," I said.
We ate dinner at Eleanor's long dining table — the six of us, and Eleanor at the head, and the empty chair where Conrad's fiancée would have sat.
No one mentioned the empty chair.
The children, who had the social instincts of people who had learned early to read a room, did not ask about it.
Rose sat next to Conrad.
She had decided this herself, pulling out the chair beside him with the matter-of-fact confidence that was entirely her own.
He had looked at her when she sat down, and she had looked back at him, and then she had picked up her fork.
"Do you like gravy?" she asked.
"I do," he said.
"Good.
Eleanor makes good gravy." She passed him the dish.
James, across the table, watched this exchange with the expression of someone filing information away for later.
He was the most like me, people said — the one who observed before he spoke.
He hadn't said a word to Conrad all evening.
Halfway through dinner, he said, "Did you know about us before today?"
The table went quiet.
Conrad set down his fork.
"No," he said.
"I didn't."
"Why not?"
"That's a complicated answer."
"I'm eight," James said.
"Not five."
Conrad looked at me.
I gave him nothing.
This was his to navigate.
"I made a mistake," Conrad said.
"A long time ago.
I didn't believe something I should have believed.
And because of that, I missed a lot of time with you.
With all of you." He paused.
"I'm sorry for that."
James considered this.
"Are you going to try to fix it?"
"If you'll let me."
Another pause.
James picked up his fork.
"Okay," he said, and resumed eating, as if the question had been administrative rather than the most important one asked at that table in years.
Eleanor, at the head of the table, had her eyes on her plate.
Her jaw was tight.
She was holding something back — not tears, I thought.
Something more complicated than tears.
After dinner, while the children helped clear the plates with the cheerful efficiency of kids who had been raised to pull their weight, Eleanor touched my arm in the kitchen doorway.
"A moment," she said.
I followed her into the study.
She closed the door.
The desk was still open — the drawer she had unlocked earlier, the space where the envelope had rested for eight years.
She stood beside it.
"There's something else," she said.
I felt the familiar tightening in my chest.
"Of course there is."
"The investigator.
The one I hired." She picked up a business card from the desk.
Old, worn at the corners.
"He didn't stop working for me after I received the report."
I looked at her.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I kept tabs on you.
For the first two years after Conrad left.
I wanted to know you were managing.
That the children were—" She stopped.
"I told myself it was concern."
"But it wasn't."
"It was control," she said.
"I know that now." She held out the business card.
"His name is on there.
All of it is documented.
I kept records.
If you want to pursue this legally, you'll have everything you need."
I took the card.
"Why are you giving me ammunition?" I said.
Eleanor looked at the empty drawer.
"Because I've been carrying it for eight years," she said.
"And I'm tired."
I put the card in my pocket.
When I came back to the kitchen, Conrad was standing at the sink washing dishes with Thomas beside him, showing Thomas how to stack the rinsed plates.
Thomas was listening with complete seriousness, as if the correct method of stacking plates were a matter of significant importance.
I stood in the doorway and watched them for a moment.
Then Lily appeared at my elbow.
"Mom," she said quietly.
"Is this going to be okay?"
"Yes," I said.
She leaned against my arm.
"You don't sound sure."
"I'm getting there," I said.
She seemed to accept this.
May you like
She went back to the sitting room.
But from my coat pocket, the investigator's business card pressed against my hand, and I knew the evening was not finished yet.
