Chapter 8
Vanessa was already on the sofa when Dad came back into the living room. She'd changed her posture into something soft, her legs tucked to one side, her hands folded in her lap like she was waiting to be apologized to. The city lights behind her made a halo around her hair. I pressed my back against the hallway wall where the light didn't reach.
Dad was holding the two halves of my book. He didn't put them together. He held them separate, one in each hand, so the tear was visible.
He stopped in front of the coffee table and set them down. The blue cover with the little white clouds was face up. He opened the right half to the inside cover.
I knew what was there even from where I stood. In faded purple ink, Mom's handwriting. For my Sophie-Bug, love Mommy. She'd drawn a tiny heart after it that bled a little into the paper.
"Did you see this?" Dad asked. His voice was quiet. He wasn't yelling like last time. That was scarier somehow.
Vanessa glanced down. She didn't lean forward. "Yes."
"Did you know it was from her before you tore it?"
There was a pause. I watched her fingers tighten around each other.
"Of course I knew," she said. "It's all she reads. It's all she talks about. That book goes everywhere with her like a security blanket. I thought - I honestly thought if she didn't have it for a few days, she would have to actually talk to me instead of hiding behind it."
Dad stared at her. His jaw moved but he didn't speak right away. I could hear the soft hum of his laptop still open on the desk in the other room.
"It's not a crutch," he said finally. "It's the last thing her mother gave her."
Vanessa let out a breath and stood up. She was taller than him when he was sitting, but now he was standing too and she had to look up a little.
"And that's the problem, David," she said. Her voice got thinner, faster. "I have been trying for eight months to make a home here. I cook for her. I do the school pick-up when you're on calls. I bought her new dresses because that white one is getting too small and she won't let me throw anything away. And it doesn't matter. I'm still just the woman who lives here. She looks right through me to someone who isn't here anymore. How am I supposed to compete with that?"
She said it like she was the one who'd been hurt.
"I didn't tear it to be cruel," she went on. "I wanted her to need me. Just once. To come to me when she's upset instead of clutching that thing and crying about her mom. I wanted a chance to be her mom."
The word landed hard in the hallway. My stomach dropped. She had said my mom's name before in that bright voice she used when she was pretending. Now she said the word like it was a job that was open.
Dad picked up the two halves again. He held them carefully, like they might fall apart more.
"Her name was Claire," he said. "You just said 'her mother' like she was an idea. Her name was Claire and she read that book to Sophie every night for a year while she was sick. Sophie was three. That's what she remembers. Not you being inconvenienced."
Vanessa's eyes filled, but not the way mine had. Hers stayed open, shiny. "So I'm the villain for wanting to be part of this family?"
"No," Dad said. "You're responsible for what you did knowing exactly what it was. You didn't tear a toy. You tore her mother's handwriting in half because you were jealous of a memory. And you did it while I was ten feet away."
He wasn't shouting. The apartment was so quiet I could hear the traffic twelve floors down.
Vanessa wiped under her eye with one finger and looked toward the hallway. For a second I thought she saw me. I held my breath and didn't move. She looked back at Dad.
"So what now?" she asked. "You want me to pretend I don't feel pushed out?"
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"I want you to understand you tried to cut her off from her mom to make room for yourself," he said. "That's not how this works."
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the carpet. The hallway was dark and cool. My socks had slipped a little. I held my knees and listened to them both breathing in the living room, not saying anything, with the torn book between them on the table and the city lights blinking outside the window.
