And when she came back to the table, she didn't sit down. She stood with her hands flat on the table and looked at him directly. I'm not here to replace your wife, she said. I want to be clear about that same as I was with Lily. I'm not her.
I'm not trying to be her, but I can be here. I can be present and steady, and I can do the work that needs doing in this house and with those children. That's what I came for. That's what I intend to do. He looked at his cup, then at her.
Why? He said, you could have gone somewhere easier, someone younger, someone who didn't come with all. He stopped. All this. Clara was quiet for a moment.
I didn't have anywhere easier to go, she said. And easy was never the thing I was looking for. She pulled out the chair and sat back down. What I was looking for, she said, was a place to be useful, a place where staying mattered. I've spent a long time in other people's houses doing other people's work and then moving on when the work was done or when they decided they didn't need me anymore.
I'm tired of that. He was watching her, so I came here, she said. And I intend to stay here unless you give me a very good reason not to. Something moved through his face. Not quite a smile, but the lines around his mouth eased just slightly.
And for a moment, she could see what he'd looked like before grief had settled permanently into his features. "I already gave you a good reason," he said. "First thing I said to you." "You did," she said. "And I'm still here."
He looked at his hands. Then he picked up his coffee and drank it. Neither of them said anything else, but the silence was different than it had been the day before. It was the silence of two people who have said the important things and are resting on the other side of them. Noah came downstairs at 7 with his suspenders half-fastened and his hair uncomed and stopped dead in the kitchen doorway when he found both Clara and his father at the table.
He looked between them with the sharp suspicious eyes of a child who had learned to read rooms. What happened? He said, "Your sister fell from the Hoft ladder yesterday." Ethan said she's all right, still sleeping. Noah's face went white underneath the tan.
"She fell." "She's fine," Clara said, bruised. "She'll be sore, but she's fine." He looked at his father and at Clara, then back at his father. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"You were asleep," Ethan said. "There was nothing for you to do. She's my sister." His voice cracked on at that particular crack of a boy who is almost old enough to hide his feelings and not quite there yet. I should have known.
Clara said, "You're right. We should have woken you." "I'm sorry," he blinked. He'd clearly been ready for an argument and didn't know what to do now that it hadn't come. "Can I go see her?"