Chapter 41 - The Name on the Report
On the second morning of their trip, Claire woke before the train stopped.
Vincent was asleep beside her, his head at an angle he would later insist had been comfortable. One hand rested near the coffee cup she had rescued from the edge of the table before it could become a marital disagreement.
She watched a line of trees move past the window.
For years, leaving had meant checking what she could carry without needing anyone else to agree.
This time the bag contained clothes she liked, a book she might never finish, and a charger Vincent had already borrowed twice.
Her phone vibrated.
Emma had sent a photograph of the kitchen table. Rachel was attempting to label something in the girl's astronomy notes with a pencil held like a weapon.
Beneath it: She says this was easier when science had fewer wires.
Claire smiled and typed a reply.
Vincent opened one eye.
“Everything all right?”
“Rachel has encountered education.”
“A dangerous development.”
He straightened slowly, discovered his neck had an opinion about the night, and failed to hide it.
Claire laughed.
They had four days before going home. Emma's school trip would follow the next week: a four-day field program in Wisconsin at the Lake Aster Field School. Forms had been completed before the wedding. Staff, transport, supervision, and contact arrangements were already familiar to both parents.
Vincent's history meant visits inside the residential site required review. They had discussed that openly. Being her father did not make every institution obliged to treat his past as irrelevant.
Collection at the designated entrance, with the agreed identification, was a separate arrangement. Both parents understood it.
Emma had more urgent concerns.
Her canvas bag might not contain enough room for the equipment Nora thought essential.
“You could pack fewer cables,” Claire suggested during their evening call.
Emma regarded her through the screen.
“That's like saying you could design fewer windows.”
“I frequently do.”
“Then I worry about your clients.”
Vincent hid his smile behind a cup.
They came home with ordinary tiredness and a souvenir Emma described as evidence that adults should not shop unsupervised.
For two evenings, the house felt new in small ways. Vincent's jacket beside Claire's. Two people negotiating the bathroom shelf. Emma opening a cupboard and discovering something had moved precisely three inches.
“No,” she said.
Both parents turned.
“The mugs were there before the wedding. They can stay there afterward.”
Claire looked at Vincent.
He returned the mugs.
The night before departure, Vincent helped check the equipment list at Emma's request.
He held the paper while she called out items from the floor. Notebook. Charger. Waterproof outer layer. Spare socks she insisted were excessive and packed anyway.
“You aren't checking every pocket?” she asked.
“Do you want me to?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
She looked up, surprised by how easily the answer arrived.
He had reasons to be anxious. She had watched those reasons appear across his face when any trip was discussed. She also knew that being fourteen could become extremely inconvenient if every parent's memory was allowed to choose the packing rules.
“I'm glad you're home,” she said abruptly.
“From the holiday?”
“Yes. And the other things.”
Vincent lowered the list.
“So am I.”
She turned back to the bag before either could make the exchange too large to bear.
The cable would not fit.
“Perhaps,” he suggested, “fewer windows?”
She threw a pair of socks at him.
Claire heard the laughter from the kitchen and let them finish the list without joining in.
The field-school bus left on Monday morning.
Nora had packed a sensible bag and then borrowed space in Emma's because sensible did not mean large enough. Celia checked the final arrangements with the teacher accompanying the group. Claire hugged Emma, received a complaint about the length of the hug, and let go.
Vincent waited until his daughter offered her own embrace.
“Don't do anything dramatic while I'm gone,” she told him.
“I'll attempt a quiet Tuesday.”
“I mean both of you. No more weddings.”
“One was quite enough work,” Claire said.
The girls boarded.
The first photographs showed a lake, a dining room, and a bunk Nora claimed was structurally inferior to Emma's. A boy named Theo Bennett appeared in the background of a group picture holding a field notebook upside down for the joke.
By Tuesday, Emma was absorbed in the program.
She liked comparing observations, disliked the breakfast eggs, and had already argued with an instructor about whether a chart was clear enough for someone encountering it without an explanation.
Claire recognized the tone and decided not to comment on inheritance.
That afternoon, Emma sent a picture of a framed report outside the field school's small laboratory.
Her message contained no joke.
Why is my name on this?
Claire enlarged the photograph.
The document described monitoring work undertaken in the preceding year. Beneath a heading identifying the student review team stood four names.
Emma Moretti.
Nora Moore.
Theo Bennett.
June Alvarez.
Claire checked the date twice.
The girls had never visited Lake Aster before Monday. Emma had known Theo for barely a day. June, another student in the group, had arrived from a different school.
Claire called immediately.
“Where are you?”
“Outside the lab. Nora's here. Our teacher's at the next building.”
“Have you asked anyone?”
“Mr. Danner says it might be a demonstration copy. But it's on the wall as last year's verified project.”
“Who is Mr. Danner?”
“Operations manager. He handles the sponsor visits.”
Claire looked toward Vincent, who had entered the kitchen and stopped when he saw her face.
She put the call on speaker after asking Emma.
“Are you worried about something happening now?” Vincent asked.
“No. I'm worried someone says I did work I didn't do.”
He took a breath.
“Then let's find out what the report is.”
At the other end, a door opened.
May you like
Emma lowered her voice.
“He's taking it down.”
