She had also not come home.
All things could be true and still leave no place for my anger to sit comfortably.
Finally I asked, “What did you think would happen if I found you?”
She had not built a new life.
“I didn’t think I would live long enough in the same world as you without coming home.”
“That is not an answer,” I snapped.
“I thought you would hate me, Harry.”
“I do.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“I thought you would hate me, Harry.”
Marcus stepped away from the table.
At the door, he paused.
“I did ruin your company,” he conceded. “I told myself it was business.”
I looked at him. “Was it?”
“No.”
He opened the terrace door.
“I was a smaller man then. Losing my wife did not make me better right away, Harry.”
He left before I could answer.
“I was a smaller man then.”
Sarah and I stayed on the terrace until the shadows reached the table.
We did not forgive.
We did not decide.
She told me about the hospital and the words she lost. I told her Lily called the moon “the night balloon” and refused to wear socks with seams.
Sarah wrote everything on a napkin.
Purple toothbrush.
Scared of elevators.
Likes olives.
Hates wet sleeves.
We did not forgive.
I watched her write our daughter into her hand like someone afraid the world might take the list away.
When I stood, Sarah stood too.
This time she did not reach for the chair.
“Can I see her?”
“Not today,” I said.
She nodded too quickly.
“Okay.”
I looked at her. “Do not disappear before tomorrow.”
“Can I see her?”
I placed the yellow duck on the table between us.
She did not touch it until I pushed it closer.
“She will want that back,” I said.
Sarah picked it up with both hands.
“I know.”
“She will want that back.”
***
This morning, Lily woke before seven and padded into the kitchen dragging her blanket behind her.
I had been sitting at the table for an hour with Sarah’s phone number on hotel stationery.
The yellow duck lay beside it.
Returned.
Not kept.
Lily climbed into my lap and reached for it.
“Duckie.”
I kissed the top of her head.
The yellow duck lay beside it.
The phone sat face down near my elbow.
I had not decided what mercy looked like yet.
Only that it had to start smaller than forgiveness.
I dialed before I could talk myself out of it.
Sarah answered on the second ring.
Neither of us spoke.
I had not decided what mercy looked like yet.
Lily pressed the duck’s crooked wing against my cheek.
“Who is it, Daddy?”
Across the line, Sarah made one careful breath.
I looked at the small yellow duck in my daughter’s hands.
At the loose button eye.
At the stitch Sarah never fixed.
“Someone who knew Duckie first, sweetheart,” I said.
“Who is it, Daddy?”
Lily held the toy out toward the phone, solemn and curious.
Sarah began to cry without making a sound.
I did not tell her to stop.
I did not tell her to come over.
I only put the phone on speaker and set it on the kitchen table.
Between us, the little yellow duck sat upright in Lily’s hands, waiting for a voice it had carried longer than she knew.
I did not tell her to come over.