Chapter 13 - What Belonged to the Adults
Emmett was out of his chair before I could move.
He sat on the floor so Margot didn’t have to look up at him.
“No, sweetheart. You didn’t.”
She held the rabbit by one ear.
“Because I told?”
“You didn’t cause this by telling. Claire and I made grown-up decisions. Those belong to us.”
“Grandpa told.”
I sat down too, though my knees objected.
“I did. And I should have talked to your daddy quietly first. I’m sorry everybody looked at you.”
She considered that.
“I didn’t like it.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
I left the apology there.
No explanation about how angry I had been.
No request for a hug.
She deserved an apology she didn’t have to finish for me.
Emmett held out his hands.
“You can be sad. You can miss her. You can be mad. None of those things change where you belong.”
Margot climbed into his lap.
“She used to make bunny pancakes.”
“I remember.”
“I liked those.”
He kissed her hair.
“It’s okay to remember things you liked.”
The next Saturday, Claire came to collect the rest of her belongings.
Margot stayed with me, as planned.
Emmett’s brother was at the house to help carry boxes and keep the visit calm.
There was no audience, no shouted speech, no second wedding scene.
Afterward, Emmett brought over a small envelope.
“Claire left this for her.”
He had read it first.
So had I before we offered it to Margot.
The note was short.
Claire said the words she had used at the wedding were wrong.
She said Margot hadn’t done anything to deserve them.
She said she was sorry.
For once, there was no but.
“Do I have to write back?” Margot asked.
“No,” Emmett said.
“Can I put it away?”
“Yes.”
She slid it into a drawer and went outside to help me fill the bird feeder.
The adults didn’t become reasonable all at once.
Claire’s mother called me cruel.
One of Emmett’s cousins said marriages took work, as though we had misplaced the instruction sheet.
Nora told Emmett that Claire had admitted saying the words exactly as we remembered them.
We thanked her and stopped asking her to stand in the middle.
Emmett sent one brief message to the relatives who kept calling.
They were separating.
Margot was not responsible.
Her feelings were not open for family debate.
Then he called a lawyer and began the slow, unglamorous work of ending a marriage.
I thought the hardest part might be behind us.
May you like
That night, Margot brought Emmett a grocery receipt and a pencil.
“Can you write that you won’t send me away?”
