Chapter 6: September 9th, All of Them
My husband cried in a way I had not seen before.
Not the quiet kind.
Not the kind he did in the garage, alone, where I couldn't see it.
This was different.
Hannah had said something to him — I still don't know exactly what — and his shoulders came forward and his face went into his hands and he cried the way a person cries when they have been holding something for a very long time and someone finally says they are allowed to put it down.
Hannah didn't flinch.
She reached across the table and put her hand on his arm and left it there.
I stood at the back door and didn't go out.
Some moments don't need a third person.
Paul appeared beside me.
"What's happening?" he said quietly.
"Something that should have happened a long time ago."
He looked out at the two of them.
He had known Rosie existed.
He had been at the hospital.
He was one of the people who had learned, over the years, not to say the name.
"Does she know everything?" he asked.
"She's finding out."
He was quiet for a moment.
"I always thought you'd tell her eventually," he said.
"I kept waiting for you to do it."
"I kept waiting for a better time."
"There wasn't going to be a better time."
"I know that now."
He put his hand briefly on my shoulder and then went back to the kitchen to check on the guests.
That was Paul.
He knew when to say the thing and when to disappear.
Outside, my husband had lifted his face from his hands.
Hannah was talking.
He was listening.
At one point she picked up the blue notebook and held it out to him and he shook his head — *keep it* — and she set it back in her lap.
I went outside.
They both looked up when I pulled the chair out.
"Can I sit?" I asked.
Hannah nodded.
The three of us sat around the table with the wooden box and the two notebooks and the remains of a birthday party that had become something else entirely.
"I want to understand the timeline," Hannah said.
"Not to make anyone feel worse.
I just need to understand it."
"Okay," I said.
"She d*ed on September 9th."
"Yes.
Nine days after you both came home."
"So my birthday has always been her — " She stopped.
Started again.
"Every September 9th was both."
"Yes."
She absorbed that.
"The cake every year," she said.
"With my name in blue."
"Yes."
"Did you ever — did you ever want to put her name on it too?"
My husband said, "Every year."
Hannah looked at him.
"Why didn't you?"
"Because your mother and I couldn't agree on how to do it without explaining why.
And we couldn't agree on how to explain it.
And the years kept going."
Hannah turned the blue notebook over in her hands.
"I want to do it next year," she said.
"Both names.
I don't care if it's just us.
I want both names on the cake."
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
"Okay," my husband said.
"Okay," I said.
Hannah nodded once, like that was settled.
"Tell me about the box," she said.
"Tell me how it started."
My husband looked at the wooden box sitting between us.
He ran one finger along the edge of it.
"The night she d*ed," he said, "I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't be in the bedroom.
I went out to the garage because I needed to do something with my hands.
I had some wood left over from a shelf I'd been meaning to build.
I just started cutting."
"You didn't know what you were making?"
"Not at first.
I just needed to be moving.
By the time I knew what it was, I was already halfway through."
"And then you kept going."
"Every year.
I'd go out after dinner, after you were in bed, and I'd add something.
Sand something down.
Put in a new piece.
It was — " He paused.
"It was the only place I could be with her."
Hannah was quiet for a long moment.
"I'm glad you did it," she said.
"I'm glad you didn't just — I'm glad there's something."
"I'm glad you know," he said.
"I should have found a way to tell you sooner.
I should have pushed harder."
"You both should have," Hannah said.
Not cruelly.
Just clearly.
"Yes," he said.
"We both should have."
The party had gone quiet inside.
Through the window I could see people starting to gather their things.
My brother was moving around with a trash bag.
The afternoon was getting long.
Hannah looked at the box one more time.
"Can I take it with me?" she asked.
"When I go back to school.
Can I take it to my room?"
"It's yours," my husband said.
"It was always meant to be yours."
She picked it up carefully, both hands underneath, the way you'd carry something fragile.
Then she said, "I have one more question."
We waited.
"The photograph.
The one inside.
The one I'd never seen." She looked at me.
"Do you have more?
From the hospital?
From those nine days?"
My chest tightened.
"Yes," I said.
"Where are they?"
I looked at my husband.
He looked back at me.
"They're in a box," I said.
"In our room.
In the closet."
Hannah's eyes didn't leave my face.
"I'd like to see them," she said.
"Tonight.
Before I go to sleep.
If that's okay."
I thought about that box in the closet.
The one I hadn't opened in fifteen years.
The one I had moved three times without ever looking inside.
"Okay," I said.
"Tonight," she said again.
"Tonight," I agreed.
She stood up, tucked the wooden box under one arm and the two notebooks under the other, and went inside to say goodbye to the guests.
My husband and I sat at the empty table.
"The closet box," he said quietly.
"I know."
"Are you going to be able to open it?"
I looked at the back door where Hannah had just disappeared.
May you like
"I don't have a choice," I said.
"And I think that's exactly right."
