Chapter 13
Marlene came to the house the next morning.
She knocked like a stranger.
Claire froze in the kitchen.
I stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind me.
Marlene looked tired without makeup.
Older.
Angrier.
“Thomas, I need to see my daughter.”
“She asked for space.”
“She is my child.”
“Yes. And she asked for space.”
Marlene’s eyes filled.
“You always do this. You make yourself the good one.”
“No, Marlene. I was the quiet one. You mistook that for guilty.”
She flinched.
“Raymond manipulated me.”
“Yes.”
“I was lonely.”
“Yes.”
“You worked all the time.”
“Yes.”
“So you admit it.”
“I admit I was imperfect. I do not admit that my imperfections made you forge our daughter’s name.”
She looked away.
“I didn’t forge it.”
“You handed him the form.”
Her mouth trembled.
“I thought if Raymond had money, he would stay.”
That sentence answered more than she meant it to.
“You were buying the man who abandoned Claire.”
“I was buying back the life I should have had.”
“At our daughter’s expense.”
She cried then.
Real or not, I could not tell anymore.
Claire opened the door behind me.
“Mom.”
Marlene reached for her.
Claire did not step forward.
“Did you know he lied about Dad?”
Marlene wiped her face.
“I wanted to believe him.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I helped him,” Marlene whispered.
Claire closed her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because your father made me feel invisible.”
Claire’s voice broke.
“So you made him invisible to me?”
Marlene had no answer.
A black sedan pulled up.
Daniel got out.
His face was grim.
“Marlene, the investigators need another statement.”
She looked at me with panic.
“Thomas.”
I felt the old reflex.
Rescue her.
Soften it.
Pay the cost.
Not this time.
“Tell the truth,” I said.
She stared at me like I had abandoned her.
May you like
Maybe I had.
Or maybe I had finally stopped abandoning myself.
