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On the way home, James kept telling himself, "It's not too late. It's not too late." He repeated it with every mile he entered Midwood, saw his school, and then that lake. When he finally pulled into his driveway, he found that the garage door was open and Marilyn's car was not inside. He just felt dizzy. He still clearly remembered the feeling many years ago. At first, she ran away, and when he got used to it, she came back, and then she stayed. He held the doorknob, his legs shaking. It's not too late, he promised himself, but deep down he was already shaken. He couldn't blame her if she left again, and once she left, she wouldn't come back this time.
A heavy, funeral silence filled the vestibule. He walked into the living room and saw a small figure huddled on the floor. Hannah. She had balled up into a ball, her arms wrapped around herself, and her eyes were red. James suddenly remembered that afternoon many years ago, when two motherless children sat on the cold steps.
"Hannah." He whispered, feeling like an old building that was about to collapse and could no longer stand. The handbag slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. He seemed to be breathing through a straw. "Where's your mom?"
Hannah looked up. "Upstairs. Sleeping." James immediately felt like he could breathe again. "I told her you would come home." She didn't look smug or triumphant. This is a fact, a true fact.
James sank to the carpet next to his youngest daughter, speechless with gratitude, while Hannah considered whether she needed to say more. Because, indeed, there is much more to say. She and her mother cried together all afternoon on Lydia's bed, so close that their tears mingled together, and then her mother fell asleep unconsciously. Half an hour ago, her brother came home in a police car. His body was shaking, but his mood was surprisingly calm. He went directly upstairs to sleep. From behind the curtain, Hannah saw Officer Fisk driving the car. That evening, Marilyn's car would reappear quietly in the driveway, washed, with the keys neatly placed on the driver's seat. Let's wait, Hannah decided. She was used to keeping people's secrets, and besides, there were more important things to tell her father.
She tugged on his arm and pointed upward. James was surprised at how strong her little hand was. "look."
At first, James didn't see anything because he had just recovered from a huge mood swing and was accustomed to a neglectful attitude towards his young daughter. It's not too late, he told himself, and he stared at the ceiling - as clean and bright as a piece of white paper in the setting sun. Nothing seems to happen.
"Look," Hannah said again, pointing pointedly at the top of his head. She had never dared to be so domineering. The surprised James looked over cautiously and finally saw it. There is a white shoe print on the cream-colored ceiling, as if someone stepped on the paint first and then stepped on the ceiling, leaving a clear and perfect mark. He had never noticed it before. His eyes were drawn to Hannah's face. Her expression was serious and proud, as if she had discovered a new planet. In fact, the shoe prints on the ceiling are, after all, a ridiculous thing, inexplicable, meaningless, and magical.
Hannah giggled, her laughter ringing like a bell in James' ears. Good to hear. He smiled too, for the first time in weeks. Hannah suddenly became bold and clung to her father. It felt familiar, reminding him of something he had forgotten.
"You know what I would do with your sister sometimes?" he said slowly. "When she was little, very little, even younger than you are now. You know what I would do?" He asked Hannah. Climbing onto his back, she stood up and rocked from side to side, feeling her weight shift on him. "Where's Lydia?" he said. "Where's Lydia?"
He would go on and on while Lydia buried her face in his hair, giggling. With his daughter's warm, soft breath on his scalp and behind his ears, he wandered around the living room, pretending to search behind furniture and in the hallways. "I can hear her voice," he said. "I can see her feet." He pinched her ankles and held them tightly. "Where is she? Where is Lydia? Where could she go? What?" He turned his head and looked back, and Lydia screamed and stepped aside, and he pretended not to see her hair hanging on his shoulders. "She's there! She's there!" He turned faster and faster, and Lydia's grip tightened. Finally, he lay on the carpet, and she rolled off his back with a smile. She will never get tired of playing this game. Once she finds something, she will "disappear", and if it "disappears", she will find it again. Sometimes, she stepped on his hand, climbed on his back, and "disappeared" in front of him. What makes something valuable? Lost and found. He had been pretending to lose her. He sat on the carpet, feeling lost.
Then, a small arm wrapped around his neck, and a warm little body pressed against his.
"Daddy," Hannah whispered, "can you do it again?"
He dropped to his knees and straightened up.
There's still a lot to do, a lot to patch. But now, all he thinks about is his daughter in his arms. He had forgotten what it felt like to hold a child—or anyone—like this. Their weight sinks into you, their instinctive grip on you, their complete trust in you, and he holds Hannah for a long moment before letting go.
When Marilyn woke up and went downstairs, it was just starting to get dark. She saw her husband curling up under the lamp with his little daughter in his arms, looking calm and gentle.
"You're home," Marilyn said. They all understood that this was a question.
"I'm going home," James said. Hannah climbed up gently and walked towards the door. She could feel a stillness in the room—she wasn't sure what it was, but she didn't want to upset such a perfect and sensitive balance. Used to being ignored, she moved to her mother's side, ready to slip out quietly. At this moment, Marilyn touched her shoulder lightly, and Hannah was startled, and her heels fell to the floor with a thud.
"It's okay," Marilyn said. "Your dad and I need to talk." Hannah's face flushed with joy. Marilyn kissed her forehead, right where her hair parted, and then said, "We'll talk tomorrow." See you in the morning."
Halfway up the stairs, Hannah stopped. She could only hear whispers coming from downstairs, but she did not crawl back to eavesdrop this time. "I'll see you tomorrow morning," her mother said, and she took it as a promise. She walked gently across the landing - past Nath's room, behind the door, her brother was sleeping, the remaining whiskey slowly evaporating from his pores; past Lydia's room, in the darkness, there seemed to be nothing there It happened, but in reality it has changed dramatically. All the way up, she came to her room, and the lawn outside the window had just begun to change from blue-black to black. Her luminous alarm clock showed that it was just after eight o'clock, but it felt like midnight, and the darkness was as thick and silent as a duvet. She quietly savored the feeling of being surrounded by it. Up in the attic, she couldn't hear her parents' voices, but it was enough to feel that they were there.
Downstairs, Marilyn lingered in the hallway, one hand on the doorknob. James wanted to swallow, but it felt like it was stuck in his throat. He has learned to read his wife's emotions from behind. From the tilt of her shoulders and the switch of weight from left foot to right foot, he already understood what she was thinking. However, it had been a long time since he had looked at her so seriously. Now, even face to face, all he could see were the blurred wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and the wrinkles on her shirt, which sometimes appeared and sometimes stretched. .
"I thought you were gone," she said finally.
James' voice was hoarse and sharp: "I thought you were gone."
At this moment, they only need to say this sentence.
There were some things they would never discuss, but James would never speak to Louisa again and he would be ashamed of their relationship for the rest of his life. Then they would talk about something they had never said before. He would show her the autopsy report, and she would put the cookbook into his hands. He couldn't remember when he started talking to his son without the smell of gunpowder in his voice, nor when his son stopped being tit-for-tat with him. For the rest of the summer, and for many years to come, when James and Marilyn spoke, they would choose words that truly meant what they meant, whether to Nath, Hannah, or each other. There was so much they needed to say.
In this quiet moment, something touched James' hand, something so light that he could barely feel it. A moth, he thought, on the cuff of his shirt. However, when he lowered his head, he saw Marilyn's fingers hooked around his, and they touched lightly. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to touch her. After making so many mistakes, he was still forgiven. He bent down and laid his head on Marilyn's hands, overwhelmed with gratitude.
They caressed each other gently on the bed, just like they did when they were together for the first time, his hands carefully tracing her back, and her fingers carefully unbuttoning his clothes. Their bodies had aged, and he could feel his shoulders sagging, and he could feel the cross-shaped scars from her childbirth surgery below her waistline. In the darkness, they treated each other tenderly, seeming to understand each other's fragility and vulnerability.
Late at night, Marilyn woke up and found her husband lying warmly next to her. His smell was as sweet as toast, with the aroma and bitterness of mellow wine. How happy it was to be here next to him - to feel the rise and fall of his chest as if it were her own breathing. Now, however, she had to do something else.
She stood at the door of Lydia's room, holding the door handle and hesitated for a while. She leaned her head against the doorframe, recalling her last night with her daughter—the reflection of Lydia's goblet flashed into her eyes, and she looked across the table with a smile, confidently imagining her daughter's future. , but never thought that this might not happen, that she might have got everything wrong.
The confidence she felt at that time has gone far away. It seems that it was some ancient feeling many years ago, an experience she had before marriage or even in her childhood. She knew they had nowhere to go but forward. Some part of her still wanted to go back to that moment—to change nothing, not even talk to Lydia, not tell her anything. Just open the door and take another look at my sleeping daughter, knowing that everything is fine.
When she finally pushed open the door, this scene appeared before her eyes: her daughter was lying on the bed, with a lock of long hair hanging on the pillow. If you looked carefully, you could even see that the duvet was rising and falling with her breathing. She knew that this was an illusion given to her by God, and she tried her best not to blink, trying to remember what her daughter looked like when she fell asleep.