“It was hanging in a closet.”
“My closet.”
“In a family home.”
“My home.”
She gave a short laugh and looked at Ethan, expecting him to rescue her from the conversation.
He didn’t.
Not because he had suddenly found courage.
He was still staring at the documents.
Marjorie noticed them.
“What’s that?”
Ethan folded the attorney’s letter immediately.
Too late.
Her expression sharpened.
“Claire, what have you done?”
It was an extraordinary question coming from someone who had spent the previous week behaving as though the only person capable of doing anything consequential was her.
I put the cardigan over the back of a chair.
“I made arrangements.”
“For what?”
“For your things to be moved out.”
“We are not strangers.”
“I know.”
“Harold needs help.”
I looked toward the driveway.
Harold was standing beside the truck speaking quietly with one of the movers.
I had never been angry at him in the same way I was angry at Marjorie.
He had mostly followed her lead, embarrassed and passive.
His difficulty with stairs was real.
Their problem was real.
But a real problem did not give anyone the right to solve it by taking over someone else’s home.
“Then you and Ethan should have asked me,” I said.
“Before the suitcases.
Before the drawers.
Before you decided indefinitely was a sentence you could announce instead of a question you needed to ask.”
Marjorie’s mouth tightened.
“We knew you’d say no.”
The room went quiet.
Even Ethan looked at her.
She seemed to realize what she had admitted only after the words were already hanging between us.
I nodded once.
“Exactly.”
She recovered quickly.
“Because you are rigid.
You always need everything your way.
Families make sacrifices.”
“Whose sacrifice?”
She blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“You took my bedroom storage, my kitchen, my clothes, my schedule, and my privacy.
Ethan gave you permission he didn’t have to give.
What exactly did either of you sacrifice?”
Ethan rubbed his forehead.
“Claire, can we talk without turning this into some courtroom?”
I almost laughed.
For five days, he had asked me not to make things difficult.
Now that difficulty had finally reached him, suddenly he wanted a careful conversation.
“I tried talking,” I said.
