Chapter 23 - SYLVIA RETURNS THE BOXEighteen months after dinner, Sylvia came to my house carrying a storage box.
“I found these.”
Inside were things from the old Mercer house.
Photographs.
A bracelet.
Andrew’s high-school yearbook.
And clothing.
Not the lost clothes.
Older items Nina had outgrown during visits.
A red sweater.
A tiny coat.
One shoe from when she was four.
Sylvia had saved them because she was sentimental.
The contradiction almost hurt.
“You kept these.”
“Yes.”
“But threw away what she wore now.”
Sylvia closed her eyes.
“I know.”
She took out a photograph.
Andrew kneeling beside six-year-old Nina.
Yellow dress.
The same one.
Sylvia said:
“I remember this day now.”
I looked.
Andrew’s hand held Nina’s.
Nina grinning.
Sylvia whispered:
“I told myself the dress looked cheap because I was angry at you.”
There.
“And then I let Charles say worse.”
“Yes.”
“And Vivian heard.”
“Yes.”
“I am sorry.”
I did not say it was fine.
It wasn’t.
I said:
May you like
“I believe you’re sorry.”
Different.
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