Chương 4
Daniel liked Elena.
Too much, apparently.
Madison looked at the bruise again.
“How long?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
She did not cry.
“Madison—”
“How long?”
Richard said, “You don’t have to—”
Madison stood so quickly her skirt knocked a stack of decorative books from a side table.
“Stop protecting everybody.”
Richard shut his mouth.
The books landed with dull thumps.
One opened facedown on the rug.
Nobody picked it up.
Elena’s voice was small.
“Since March.”
Madison counted backward without meaning to.
March.
Six months.
Her bridal shower had been in April.
Their engagement photographs had been taken in May.
Daniel and Madison had spent Memorial Day weekend at Richard and Elena’s lake house, where Elena made blueberry pancakes and Daniel grilled hamburgers badly enough that Richard took over.
Madison sat back down.
“Six months.”
Elena shook her head.
“No. Not six months the way you mean.”
“I don’t know what I mean.”
“It wasn’t—”
Daniel said, “Don’t rewrite it now.”
Richard moved.
Madison’s voice cut across the room.
“Dad.”
He stopped again.
Elena looked at Daniel.
Something appeared in her expression then.
Not fear.
Disgust.
“You came to me,” she said.
Daniel laughed once.
“You answered.”
“I know.”
“You kept answering.”
“I know.”
“You kissed me.”
Richard’s face changed.
Madison looked at him.
He had not known that.
Good, she thought again.
Then hated herself again.
Elena’s hands tightened around the torn fabric.
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
Richard turned away.
For several seconds, the only sound was the ventilation system.
Madison stared at the pearls in her palm.
One had a scratch across its surface.
She had picked that particular bracelet because Daniel once told her pearls looked like something his grandmother would wear.
She had said, “Exactly. Your grandmother had taste.”
He had rolled his eyes.
Three years later, she could still hear the conversation more clearly than the one happening in front of her.
“Why?” Madison asked.
Elena looked at her.
Madison shook her head.
“No. Actually, don’t answer that yet. I don’t want some explanation that makes me understand it. Just tell me what happened.”
Elena nodded.
She took a breath.
“Daniel started texting me in March.”
“About what?”
“Your father.”
Richard turned back.
Elena gave him a tired look.
“You were awful to him.”
“I asked him to sign a prenup.”
“You called him a professional son-in-law.”
Richard said nothing.
Madison remembered the dinner.
Daniel had laughed at the phrase.
Later, at home, he had punched the elevator button three times harder than necessary and said Richard would never respect him.
Madison had spent an hour telling him her father’s approval did not matter.
It had mattered.
Apparently it had mattered enough that Daniel started texting Richard’s wife.
“At first he was angry,” Elena said. “He wanted to know how I dealt with your father. I thought he needed somebody who wasn’t you. Somebody neutral.”
Madison almost smiled.
“You thought you were neutral?”
Elena winced.
“No.”
“Good.”
“I know how stupid that sounds.”
“Do you?”
Richard said, “Madison.”
She turned on him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then stop saying my name like I’m twelve.”
He looked down.
Elena continued.
“The messages became personal.”
“How personal?”
Daniel said, “You don’t need to do this.”
Madison looked at him.
“I haven’t asked you a question.”
Daniel’s face closed.
Elena sat in a chair near the window.
The movement exposed another inch of the torn seam.
“I complained about Richard.”
Richard gave a short nod, as though accepting evidence in court.
Madison stared at him.
Elena rubbed her thumb against one fingernail.
“I was angry with him. We had been fighting. He was working all the time. He had canceled a trip. He embarrassed me at a donor dinner.”
Richard said, “I apologized.”
Elena looked at him.
“Three weeks later.”
He looked away.
“And Daniel listened,” Elena said.
Madison felt suddenly exhausted.
“Of course he did.”
“I liked it.”
There was no defense in Elena’s voice.
That made it worse.
“I liked somebody asking how I was before asking what time dinner was. I liked somebody being angry at Richard on my behalf.”
Richard closed his eyes briefly.
Elena continued.
“And I liked being wanted by someone who wasn’t twenty-two years older than me and already convinced he knew every version of me I could become.”
Richard absorbed that without moving.
Madison watched him do it.
For years she had believed her father could withstand anything except losing control.
Now she wondered if she had confused control with armor.
Daniel said, “You told me you loved me.”
Elena stared at him.
Richard’s head snapped toward her.
Madison whispered, “Did you?”
Elena took several seconds.
“I said it once.”
Daniel laughed again.
“Once?”
“I said it once.”
“You said it twice.”
“Fine. Twice.”
The absurdity of the correction made Madison’s throat tighten.
Twice.
As if the number could matter.
She looked down at her gown.
There was a faint gray mark where one pearl had rolled beneath the hem.
She rubbed it with her thumb.
Nothing changed.
“Did you sleep with him?”
Elena’s face crumpled for the first time.
Richard moved toward her.
She lifted a hand.
He stopped.
“Yes,” she said.
Madison heard a noise.
It took her a moment to realize she had made it.
Not a sob.
Something smaller.
Air catching where it should not.
Daniel’s eyes closed.
Richard turned toward the fireplace.
Madison looked at Elena for a long time.
“When?”
“April.”
“My shower was April.”
“I know.”
“Before?”
Elena did not answer.
Madison laughed.
There it was again, the wrong sound.
“Before my shower.”
“Yes.”
“You helped Claire arrange flowers.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Madison saw the exact moment Richard understood why that detail mattered.
He looked ill.
Madison stood.
The library suddenly felt too small.
She walked to the window.
May you like
Outside, three catering employees were loading unused chair covers onto a cart. Through the glass, they looked like people cleaning up after a storm that had somehow missed the rest of the city.
She touched the cool window frame.
