Chapter 7 - Margaret Rearranged A Dead Man’s Intentions
I went upstairs before speaking to Margaret.
Not to calm down.
To avoid screaming where Lily could hear.
I stood in Room Three.
Now that I knew, the empty spaces looked different.
Dust rectangles.
Missing boxes.
Bare nails.
One wall had three lighter squares where frames had once hung.
I had assumed Nathan never finished decorating.
Maybe someone undecorated him after death.
Margaret came up ten minutes later.
She stopped at the doorway.
“You talked to Miles again.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes moved toward the empty wall.
I saw it.
“What was hanging there?”
“Pictures.”
“Of?”
No answer.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Lily?”
“Yes.”
“Our wedding?”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
I laughed softly.
“You removed them.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I couldn't stand looking at them.”
That might have been true.
“What else?”
“Rachel.”
“What else did you take?”
“Clothes.”
“Mine?”
“Yes.”
“Lily's things?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Attic.”
I stared.
Still in the house.
Five years.
“You kept them.”
“I couldn't throw them away.”
“Why take them from here?”
Margaret looked around.
“Because this room made him look like he was building something.”
My anger sharpened.
“He was.”
“I didn't know what.”
“You knew it included us.”
“I knew he had packed your things.”
“That’s generally a clue.”
“He also slept on that mattress alone.”
“Both can be true.”
She looked at me.
I continued:
“You took the family photographs.”
“Yes.”
“You took our boxes.”
“Yes.”
“Then three days later you told me Nathan had ‘already started moving his life somewhere else.’”
Margaret's mouth tightened.
“I thought he had.”
“No.”
“You don't know.”
“Neither did you.”
Silence.
“You curated him.”
She flinched.
“You stripped every sign of us out of his room and then told me what the room meant.”
“I was grieving.”
“So was I.”
“I had lost my son.”
“And I had lost the only person who could correct you.”
That landed.
Margaret sat on the edge of the foldout mattress.
“I hated this room.”
“Why?”
“Because he could leave the main house without leaving the property.”
I frowned.
“That sounds like exactly what you would want.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Because he was learning.”
“What?”
“That he could be close to me without being available to me.”
There was the wound.
Not the company.
Not the apartment.
Access.
Nathan had stopped answering every call.
Stopped coming to Sunday dinner unless invited.
Started telling Margaret:
Not tonight.
Not your decision.
Ask Rachel.
Things that probably sounded ordinary to anyone not raised inside their family.
To Margaret, they felt like doors closing.
“He blamed me for too much,” she said.
“Probably.”
Her eyes lifted.
“You're allowed to say that?”
“Yes.”
“He blamed you too.”
“Yes.”
She almost looked relieved.
“I’m not making him perfect because you're wrong.”
Margaret looked down.
“Good.”
“Don't mistake that for forgiveness.”
Her face tightened again.
“What did you tell him in Room Three?”
“I told you.”
“No. You told him I was making plans.”
“Yes.”
“What words?”
She resisted.
I waited.
Finally:
“I said, ‘Rachel already chose.’”
My stomach dropped.
“You said that.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I hadn't.”
“I knew you were close.”
“Not the same.”
“No.”
“Why make it final?”
Margaret's voice rose.
“Because he was making everything final too.”
“He was leaving the company.”
“Yes.”
“He was looking at apartments.”
“Yes.”
“He was going to take Lily away from me.”
I stared.
“Lily is not yours to be taken from.”
Her face changed.
She heard it.
Maybe for the first time.
Margaret looked toward the floor.
“No.”
I waited.
She added:
“But I felt it that way.”
That was more honest.
“I wanted him scared enough to stop.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
Margaret laughed bitterly.
“He said if you chose to leave him, that was between you and him.”
“And?”
“If you chose to move with him, that was also between you and him.”
Her eyes filled.
“He told me either way, I did not get a vote.”
My anger softened by one degree.
Not for what she did.
For understanding what Nathan had been trying to say.
“What did you do?”
“I told him I was his mother.”
“As if that answered.”
“Yes.”
Margaret rubbed her face.
“He said, ‘That's the problem. You say what you are whenever you can't explain what you're doing.’”
I could hear Nathan saying that too.
She looked at me.
“I hated him for that.”
“When did you stop?”
“I didn't.”
Her voice broke.
“He died while I was still furious.”
That grief had shaped everything after.
Not absolution.
Shape.
Then Lily called from the yard.
“Mom!”
I went to the window.
She and Ethan were throwing a ball badly.
Margaret came beside me.
For several seconds we watched.
Then she whispered:
“I thought if you believed Nathan wanted to leave you, you would stay close to us.”
I turned slowly.
She had finally said the part beneath everything.
Not only the room.
Not only grief.
May you like
She had needed me and Lily to remain in orbit after Nathan died.
And she had made my dead husband's love uncertain because uncertainty kept me from trusting my own way out.
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