Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,70
Webster says, “and this fell, and I picked it up…”
“You’re reading it,” she says.
“It just…”
“You had no right to do that,” Rowan says.
“It just fell open…,” he says, knowing how lame that sounds.
“YOU HAD NO FUCKING RIGHT!” his daughter yells. She puts her hands up against the jambs, as if holding herself back from charging. “That was mine! That was personal!”
“I know it was, I know it is,” Webster protests, dropping the diary onto the bed.
“Get out!” Rowan screams. “Get out of this room, and don’t ever, ever, ever come back. Ever. DO YOU HEAR ME?”
He has never seen this level of rage in his daughter. Rowan moves inside the room to allow her father to leave. As soon as he’s gone, she slams the door so hard the attic shakes.
Webster knows that Rowan spent some part of the afternoon at the hairdresser with Gina. He won’t make it easy for her to ignore him tonight. In his shirt and jeans, he waits for her to come down the stairs. Every time he thinks about the notebook, he cringes.
He can hear the clicking of high heels on the floor above him. He gapes when Rowan descends the stairs and walks into the kitchen. She’s chosen a black dress, high waisted, that looks disturbingly like the one Sheila wore to their wedding. Rowan has pearls at her throat, a gift from her grandmother. His daughter walks to a mirror in the back hallway. She turns from side to side as a model might. His daughter is a woman, he tells himself. He’s had this thought before, but each time he realizes it, it strikes him anew. He tries not to think about it at all, but Rowan reminds him again and again. When he sees the way she is with Tommy, his head fills with static, like a TV on a channel with no signal. It’s none of his business, Webster tells himself over and over, but of course it is. How can it not be?
“Those are some heels,” he says, the first time he’s spoken to her since he left her room.
Rowan doesn’t respond.
“I want to get your picture.”
If she refuses him this, he’ll know the rift is even deeper than he fears.
“Where?” she asks, her tone sullen.
“Where we always do them.”
Rowan walks to the bare patch of kitchen wall, against which he has taken many pictures of his daughter: dressed as a bunch of grapes at Halloween; holding her softball trophy aloft, her eyes popping with pride; in her Girl Scout uniform, trying and failing to look serious.
Did she choose the black dress because he told her Sheila wore a similar dress to their wedding? Has he never shown Rowan the wedding pictures? He doesn’t even know where they are—packed up in one of the many boxes in the cellar, he imagines. Was Rowan’s an unconscious choice or a conscious one?
Rowan shakes her hands at her sides, trying to loosen herself up. He’s seen her do that before games. He aims the digital in her direction, studies the screen, finds an angle he likes. She isn’t smiling. He presses the silver button.
She doesn’t ask to see the picture.
She wrestles with the small purse she is taking with her, performing her own triage. Lipstick in, hairbrush out, ditto hair spray, keys in, mirror in, cell phone in, hand cream out.
It’s a beautiful summer night. He remembers similar weather for his own prom, now called the senior dance. He rented a tux. Do boys do that nowadays? He also remembers his date, Alicia, who had on a poufy dress with big shoulders. At the time, he wondered if she would put out, but she didn’t. He’s pretty sure they both had a decent time.
Webster glances at the clock over the sink. He can hear Tommy’s car in the driveway.
Rowan opens her purse and studies the contents once again.
Of all times to look heartbreakingly lovely.
She snatches up a wrap from a chair. She opens the back door and closes it without a word. Webster walks into the dining room and watches through the window. Tommy is out of the car and on his way toward the house. He and Webster would have shaken hands. Perhaps a look of understanding might have passed between them.
Rowan’s mincing walk in her stilettos might have made Webster laugh. Tommy opens the car door for Rowan, a nice touch. He walks around the back of his car, straightening his sport coat. No tux. When the engine starts,