And when it started coming apart on its own, because it was always going to come apart. It was never built right. I made sure I was the one with the narrative. The silence stretched. You knew I had feelings for him, Clare said.
From the beginning. Yes. And you stayed engaged to him anyway. For 11 months? Yes.
To keep me away from him. Vanessa didn't answer that directly. She looked at Marcus. I'm sorry, she said. For what it cost you.
You deserved better than I gave you. Marcus looked at her. A long look, not angry, just clear. Thank you for saying that. It wasn't forgiveness.
It wasn't resolution. It was just receipt of something overdue. Vanessa turned back to her sister. I'm not asking you to forgive me right now, she said. I know better than to ask that.
Good, Clare said. Her voice was shaking slightly now, not from weakness. From the effort of keeping all of it upright at once. Because right now I can't, Walter said quietly. I didn't know any of this.
I know, Dad. Clare said. Neither did I. Not all of it. Eleanor was crying.
The quiet kind. The real kind. Her hand pressed to her mouth. Not performing this time. Just feeling it.
Walter looked at Marcus. A different kind of look than the one before. Still guarded, but something in it had shifted. "You're still not who I would have chosen," he said. Marcus said with respect, "That's not your choice."
Walter absorbed that. "No," he said finally. "I suppose it's not. That wasn't acceptance. That wasn't blessing, but it was the beginning of a man acknowledging a boundary."
And for Walter Bennett, Marcus understood that was probably the furthest he was going to get today, and it was further than he'd expected. Clare looked at her father, at her mother, at her sister. She took a breath that Marcus could see from where he stood deep. Deliberate, the breath of someone gathering themselves back into themselves after a long scattering. I'm going home, she said.