Chapter 5: The Call She Wasn't Supposed to Make
We took our daughter to the salon that afternoon — a small place two streets over run by a woman named Patrice who had been cutting hair in that neighborhood for twenty years.
Patrice took one look at our daughter's head, pressed her lips together, and said nothing about how it had gotten that way.
She just asked our daughter what she wanted.
"Even," our daughter said.
"Just even."
"I can do even," Patrice said.
"And I can add a little shape so it looks like you chose it."
Our daughter watched herself in the mirror the whole time.
By the end she was sitting up straighter.
"It actually looks pretty good," she said, with the careful honesty of a child who had expected to be disappointed.
"It looks great," Patrice said.
"You've got good hair.
Strong."
We drove home with the windows down.
Our daughter had her hand out the window, feeling the air.
For a little while, everything felt almost normal.
It stopped feeling normal when we walked through the front door.
Daniel's mother was in the living room.
She was not alone.
A man I had never seen before was sitting in our armchair.
He was somewhere in his sixties, wearing a collared shirt, and he had the particular stillness of someone who was used to being the most important person in a room.
He stood when we came in.
"This is Gerald," Daniel's mother said.
"An old family friend."
Daniel went very still beside me.
"Gerald," he said.
His voice had changed.
"Daniel." The man nodded.
"It's been a long time."
"What are you doing here?"
"Your mother called.
Said there was some trouble at home." He glanced at me briefly — not rudely, but assessingly, the way you look at something you're trying to price.
"She thought it might help to have someone neutral present."
"There's nothing neutral about this," I said.
Gerald looked at me with mild surprise, as though he hadn't expected me to speak.
"And you are?" he asked.
"I'm his wife.
This is my house.
And I didn't invite you into it."
Daniel's mother made a soft sound — not quite a laugh.
"This is exactly what I mean," she said to Gerald.
"You see how she is."
"Mom." Daniel's voice was tight.
"You called Gerald without telling me?"
"I was worried," she said simply.
"I wanted someone here who could help everyone calm down."
"We were calm," I said.
"We took our daughter to get her hair fixed.
We were completely calm."
Gerald put his hands up in a peaceable gesture.
"I'm not here to take sides.
I just thought—"
"Gerald." Daniel cut him off.
"I don't know what she told you, but there's no situation here that requires your involvement.
I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
Something moved across Gerald's face.
He looked at Daniel's mother, then back at Daniel.
"She said your wife came into her room at night," he said.
"With scissors."
The room went quiet.
Our daughter was standing beside me.
I put my hand on her shoulder.
"Go to your room, sweetheart," I said quietly.
"I'll come up in a minute."
She looked at Gerald, then at her grandmother, then at me.
She went upstairs without arguing.
I waited until I heard her door close.
"Yes," I said.
"I went into the guest room.
I held the scissors.
I did not touch her.
I said my piece and I left.
If she told you anything different, she lied to you."
Gerald looked at Daniel's mother.
She met his gaze without flinching.
"She's not remembering it correctly."
"I remember it exactly," I said.
"Gerald," Daniel said, "I need you to leave.
Now.
Please."
Gerald picked up his jacket from the arm of the chair.
He looked at Daniel's mother once more — a long look, something passing between them that I couldn't read — and then he walked to the front door.
He paused with his hand on the frame.
"Your mother loves you, Daniel," he said.
"She's just scared."
"Goodbye, Gerald," Daniel said.
The door closed.
The three of us stood in the living room.
Daniel's mother looked at her son with an expression I had never seen on her face before.
Not anger.
Something closer to calculation.
"You're going to regret that," she said quietly.
"Maybe," Daniel said.
"But he's gone."
She nodded once, slowly.
Then she picked up her cardigan from the sofa and walked upstairs.
I looked at Daniel.
He was staring at the closed front door.
"Who is Gerald?" I asked.
He turned to look at me.
"He was my father's business partner," he said.
"After my father died, he helped my mother manage the estate."
"He still does?"
Daniel's jaw tightened.
"He's supposed to."
"What does that mean?"
He didn't answer right away.
May you like
He walked to the window and stood there with his back to me, looking out at the empty street.
"It means," he said slowly, "that my mother just made a move I didn't expect."
