Claire turned toward the room around them as if seeing it differently.
“She ate at this table.”
Margaret looked at the blue plate.
“And she came to your wedding and said nothing.”
Claire’s face had gone white.
Daniel stood.
“Okay.”
Neither woman looked at him.
“We need to slow down.”
Claire laughed sharply.
“Now you want to slow down?”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“You wanted to put her in a nursing home ten minutes ago.”
Daniel flinched.
Margaret looked at him.
The original wound returned.
She had almost forgotten it.
Almost.
He was still standing there in his work shirt.
Still the son who had heard his wife call her an old woman and responded by suggesting a nursing home.
The revelation had changed the room.
It had not erased what came before it.
Daniel saw her looking at him.
“Mama, I…”
“Not now.”
His mouth closed.
Claire stared at Margaret.
“You looked for me?”
Margaret turned back to her.
“For years.”
“How?”
“I called the agency.”
“And?”
“They told me your records were confidential.”
Claire swallowed.
“I wrote letters.”
“To me?”
“To the office. I asked that they be placed in your file.”
Claire went still.
“I never got letters.”
