Chapter 10: Dinner
Daniel arrived at six-thirty.
Claire had made a lamb stew — the kind that takes most of the afternoon, that fills the house with a smell that means something is being repaired.
I noticed it when I came downstairs and didn't say anything about it.
Sophie heard the doorbell and came to the top of the stairs in her socks.
"Is that the man from the wall?" she said.
"That's Daniel," I said.
"He's my brother."
She considered this.
"So he's my uncle?"
I looked up at her.
"Yes," I said.
"He is."
She came down the stairs and stood in front of Daniel in the hallway and looked at him with the same measuring look she'd given me that first night.
"You used to bring me crackers," she said.
"I did," Daniel said.
"They were the good kind." She turned and went to the kitchen.
Daniel looked at me.
His jaw was tight in a way that meant he was holding something back.
"Come in," I said.
Dinner was not easy and it was not comfortable and it was also, somehow, all right.
Claire asked Daniel direct questions and he answered them directly.
He told her about Mara's calls, about the passage, about the weeks he'd spent checking on Sophie while trying to find the right moment to tell me.
Claire listened without interrupting.
When he finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"You should have told him sooner," she said.
"Yes," Daniel said.
"I should have."
"But you kept her safe." She picked up her fork.
"So."
That was all she said about it.
After dinner, Sophie fell asleep on the sofa with her head on Lily's shoulder, both of them listing sideways toward each other the way children do when they've decided someone is safe.
I sat in the armchair across from them and watched them for a moment.
Daniel came and stood in the doorway.
"She looks like Mara," he said quietly.
"Around the eyes."
"I know."
"Mara would have—" He stopped.
"I know," I said again.
We stood there for a while without talking.
The lamp in the corner made the room warm and small.
Outside, a car passed.
The house settled.
"I'm going to apply for formal guardianship," I said.
"Ms.
Adeyemi thinks the hearing will go well."
"It will," Daniel said.
"And I want you involved.
In her life.
She already knows you.
That matters."
Daniel was quiet for long enough that I looked over at him.
"Okay," he said.
His voice was rough at the edges.
May you like
"Yeah.
Okay."
