“I’m serious, Claire.” He turned away from the window. “Don’t get friendly with her. I mean it.”
“Why would I? I’ve said maybe four words to the woman.”
He shrugged, but there was something tight in his face. “I’ve seen the way she looks at Daisy. When we’re out front. She watches her.”“Maybe she just likes kids. Some people do.”
“You always do that.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a warm smile. “You always give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes way too much.”
And I let it go, but it worked on me. Because that’s the thing about a comment like that. Once he’d said Charlotte watched our daughter, I started watching Charlotte. I couldn’t help it. Every time I saw her out there in her black jacket, I’d feel a little prickle up my neck and pull Daisy a bit closer.I hated that feeling, though. And to understand why I hated it so much, you have to understand how I grew up.
My parents didn’t fight the way normal people fight. They fought with silence. They’d have a blowup, and then, instead of talking, they’d simply stop speaking to each other. For days. Sometimes weeks. And when they absolutely had to communicate, they used me.
“Go tell your father dinner’s ready.”
“Tell your mother I’m not hungry.”
“Ask your father if he’s planning to fix the sink or if that’s my job now too.”
I’d walk back and forth across the kitchen carrying their poison to each other, this little messenger pigeon, maybe eight years old, ten, twelve. I grew up inside other people’s unspoken resentment, and it warped something in me. By the time I was twelve, I’d made myself one rule, one thing I swore my life would never look like:Say the ugly thing out loud. Whatever it is. Just say it.
