Chapter 5: What Tom Couldn't Say
Tom came home that evening with flowers.
Not a grand gesture — just the kind from the garage on the corner, wrapped in cellophane, slightly too much baby's breath.
He set them on the kitchen counter without saying anything about them, like he hoped they'd explain themselves.
Riley was doing homework at the table.
She looked at the flowers.
She looked at Tom.
"Are those for Mum or for me?" she asked.
Tom pulled out a chair and sat down across from her.
He didn't answer the question.
"I've been thinking all day about what to say to you," he said.
"I had a whole thing worked out on the drive home.
It was a good speech."
"What happened to it?"
"I got in the door and it went." He put his hands flat on the table.
"So I'm just going to say it badly instead."
Riley put her pen down.
"I spent three days being angry at you for doing something I didn't understand," Tom said.
"And I never once asked you why.
I just — decided what it meant, and then I punished you for the version I'd made up."
Riley didn't say anything.
"That was wrong," he said.
"Not just because I turned out to be wrong about what it was.
It would have been wrong even if it had been something stupid.
You deserved to be heard first."
"I knew you'd be upset," Riley said.
"I wasn't expecting you not to be."
"I stopped speaking to you.
For a day.
Your grandmother had just — and I stopped speaking to you."
"Dad." Her voice was quiet.
"I knew why."
"That doesn't make it okay."
"No," she agreed.
"But it makes it human."
Tom looked at her for a long moment.
I was standing in the doorway of the kitchen and neither of them had noticed me.
I didn't move.
"She talked to you about me," Tom said.
It wasn't a question.
"She talked about all of us."
"What did she say?
About me."
Riley was quiet for a moment.
She picked up her pen and turned it over in her fingers, not writing, just holding it.
"She said you were the kind of man who would carry something heavy for miles before you'd put it down and ask for help," she said.
"She said it was your best quality and your worst one."
Tom's jaw moved.
"She said she used to worry about you," Riley said.
"When Mum was having a hard time.
She said she'd lie awake thinking about whether you were okay.
Whether anyone was asking."
"No one was asking," Tom said.
His voice had gone rough.
"I wasn't — I didn't want anyone to."
"She knew that." Riley set the pen down.
"She said that was the part that worried her most."
Tom put his face in his hands.
Not dramatically.
Just — quietly.
Like he'd been holding something up for a long time and needed thirty seconds to set it down.
Riley looked at him.
Then she got up, walked around the table, and put her hand on his shoulder.
She didn't say anything.
She just stood there with her hand on his shoulder, the way you'd steady someone on a boat.
After a moment, Tom reached up and covered her hand with his.
I went back down the hall before either of them saw me.
Some things aren't meant to have a witness.
I stood in the living room and looked at the coffee table where Riley's arm had been.
The small curl of tape she'd peeled off was still there on the edge.
I hadn't thrown it away.
I wasn't sure why.
My phone buzzed.
A text from my sister, Carol: *Thinking of you all.
How's the house holding up?*
I typed back: *Better than we deserve.*
She sent a heart.
Then: *Mum would say that's exactly right and also completely wrong.*
I laughed.
Alone in the living room, with a curl of medical tape on the coffee table and the sound of my husband and daughter talking quietly in the kitchen, I laughed.
It felt like something coming loose.
Something that had been wound too tight for too long.
Then Tom appeared in the doorway.
"The flowers are for both of you," he said.
"I couldn't decide so I got one bunch and I'm splitting the credit."
"Very efficient," I said.
He looked at me.
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know yet," I said.
"Ask me in a week."
He nodded, like that was a reasonable answer.
Then: "Riley wants to know if we can have takeaway tonight.
She says she's not in the mood to perform normalcy over a home-cooked meal."
"She said that?"
"Word for word."
I picked up the curl of tape from the coffee table and held it in my palm for a second.
Then I walked to the kitchen bin and dropped it in.
"Tell her yes," I said.
"Tell her she can pick."
But later that night, after the takeaway boxes were cleared and Max was in bed and Riley had gone upstairs, Tom sat beside me on the couch and said something that changed the shape of the whole week.
"She showed me one of the cards," he said.
"The one from two years ago.
The one that says don't let anyone make you small."
"I read that one too."
"Riley said your mum sent it after a phone call where Riley told her about a teacher who'd embarrassed her in front of the class." He paused.
"She said your mum stayed on the phone for forty minutes.
Didn't fix it.
Didn't give advice.
Just — stayed on the line."
I looked at him.
"I don't know how to do that," he said.
"Stay on the line without trying to fix it.
I don't know if I ever learned."
"You could learn," I said.
He was quiet for a moment.
May you like
"Yeah," he said.
"I think I need to."
