He did not ask her to.
She stood beside the wall and held the torn crown while he apologized for the chair, the kitchen counter, the room, the way he had told her to wash her face instead of asking why she was hurt.
When he finished, Lucy asked, “Are you mad at me?”
He looked almost startled.
“No.”
“For making everybody leave?”
“You didn’t make anybody leave.”
Lucy glanced at Vanessa.
For once, her father followed the glance instead of pretending not to understand it.
“I made that decision,” he said. “Because I am your dad. I should have made better decisions sooner.”
Vanessa’s mother carried Amelia’s bag to the car. Vanessa followed without saying goodbye to Lucy. At the front door she turned to her husband.
“You are destroying this family over one bad moment.”
He answered without anger.
“No. I am finally admitting that it was not one moment.”
Amelia was the last to leave.
She held Lucy’s birthday card, though it was not her birthday anymore in any way that felt normal.
“Can I keep this?” she asked.
Lucy nodded.
Amelia touched the crooked drawing of two sisters.
“I want to answer it later.”
The door closed behind her.
The house became very quiet.
Lucy’s father unplugged the birthday music. Then he carried the kitchen-counter napkin and plastic fork to the table and threw them away.
He did not move Lucy’s chair back immediately.
Instead, he asked where she wanted to sit.
Lucy pointed to the chair that had belonged to her grandmother.
He pulled it out for her.
She climbed onto it slowly.
Neither of them ate cake.
They made toast at eleven that night because Lucy said she was hungry, and her father burned the first two pieces while trying to listen to everything she had not told him.
