Chapter 9: The Family He Divided
Mara held up a hand, asking Denise to wait.
“I want to call you back in a minute,” she said. “There’s something Ethan and I need to decide first.”
When she ended the call, the kitchen seemed to shrink around them. The red dress lay across the chairs, its skirt spilling toward the floor. Ethan’s diploma rested on the table beside it, the gold seal catching the light.
Mara turned to her son.
“Denise heard a version of Sophie’s wishes that wasn’t true.”
“I know.”
“She believed it because your father told her Sophie wanted no contact.”
Ethan’s eyes dropped to the dress. He didn’t look surprised. That hurt more than surprise would have.
“Could I play Denise a few seconds of the message?” Mara asked. “Only the part about Sophie wanting to stay your sister. Nothing else.”
Ethan was quiet long enough for the refrigerator to click on.
“Just her words,” he said. “Not Dad’s.”
“Just her words.”
Mara called Denise back. She put the phone on speaker, but waited for Ethan to nod before opening the recording Lucas had sent him. The audio began with a faint rustle. Then Sophie’s voice, familiar and bright, entered the kitchen.
“I want Mom to keep calling me her daughter,” Sophie said. “And Ethan’s my little brother. That’s not something I want to leave behind.”
Mara stopped the recording.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
“Oh,” Denise whispered.
Mara closed her eyes. She had heard those words before. She had not heard them spoken to someone who had been told the opposite.
Denise’s breath caught. “Daniel said Sophie wanted no contact with us. He said she’d made that clear before she died.”
“Did he say she wanted to be forgotten?” Ethan asked.
“Yes.” Denise sounded ashamed now, but shame didn’t undo the damage. “He said she wanted privacy. That she didn’t want any of us talking about her.”
“She didn’t ask for that,” Mara said.
“I understand.” Denise paused. “I’m sorry, Ethan.”
Ethan’s hands curled around the edge of the table. “I don’t need everyone to agree with what I wore. I need them to stop saying Sophie asked to disappear.”
“You’re right,” Denise said. “I’ll tell the others what I heard.”
“Please don’t send the recording around,” he said. “I don’t want her voice passed from phone to phone.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
When the call ended, Ethan lifted the dress from the chairs. He held it carefully, keeping the fabric from dragging across the floor, and carried it upstairs. Mara listened to his steps fade, then heard his bedroom door open and close.
Her phone buzzed. A message from Denise appeared: Sunday’s still happening. I’ll tell people what I know.
Mara read it to Ethan when he came back down.
He had gone pale, but his voice was steady. “Lucas should be there.”
Mara glanced at him. “You want to ask him?”
“I don’t want him to defend the dress like it was a performance.” Ethan rubbed his thumb along a seam in his sleeve. “I want him to tell them Sophie made it for me. That he saw what she wanted. If he’s willing.”
Mara found Lucas’s name in her contacts and handed him the phone.
Ethan didn’t press call right away.
“He might say no,” Mara said.
“He can.” Ethan looked at the screen. “I just don’t want to stand there alone while everyone decides Dad must be telling the truth because he’s my dad.”
The words landed between them, too heavy for Mara to lift away. She didn’t try.
Ethan called.
Lucas answered after two rings. “Hey.”
“Hey. Denise is having everyone over Sunday,” Ethan said. “I’m going to tell them Dad was wrong about what Sophie wanted.”
A pause.
“Okay,” Lucas said.
“I’m not asking you to defend me wearing the dress. I’m asking you to stand beside me and tell them Sophie made it for me. If you’re comfortable.”
“I can do that.”
Ethan looked toward the stairs. “I’m not going to play the recording for everyone.”
“Good,” Lucas said softly. “She was talking to us. She didn’t ask to become evidence.”
Ethan swallowed. “Thanks.”
Mara watched the tightness leave his shoulders by a fraction. When he ended the call, he set the phone down with care.
“He’ll come,” he said.
“Then we’ll tell the truth,” Mara replied. “We won’t make Sophie a spectacle to prove she mattered.”
Ethan nodded, though his eyes stayed on the table.
Mara understood what he couldn’t say easily: telling the truth might bring the relatives back toward them. It might also drive his father farther away.
She waited until Ethan had gone upstairs before she called Daniel.
He answered immediately.
“Denise called you,” Mara said.
“She told me you played Sophie’s message.”
“A short part. Ethan agreed.”
“And now you’re planning to turn Sunday into a trial.”
“We’re planning to correct what you told the family.”
Daniel’s silence carried the old pull of an argument he wanted her to soften for him.
“You think exposing me will fix anything?” he said at last. “You’ll cost this family what little it has left.”
Mara gripped the edge of the counter. “You already cost us something when you told them Sophie wanted no contact.”
“I was trying to keep people from tearing everything open.”
“You told them her silence was her choice.”
“I was grieving.”
“So was Ethan.”
Daniel exhaled sharply. “Don’t make me the only person who lost her.”
Mara felt the answer rise in her—the cruel, easy one—and let it pass. “I’m not. But you don’t get to use your grief to speak for Sophie.”
The call ended without goodbye.
Mara stood alone in the kitchen. Upstairs, a door opened. Ethan’s footsteps crossed the hall, stopped, then moved again.
A moment later, he called down.
“Mom?”
The change in his voice brought her to the stairs.
Ethan stood in the doorway of his room, staring at the empty chair beside his desk. His diploma was still on the floor where he had set it. The red dress was gone.
May you like
He looked at Mara, his face drained of color.
“It was right here.”
