Chương 8
“I know.”
This time she did correct him.
“No. You’re learning.”
He looked up.
Nora surprised herself with the sentence.
So did he.
For a while neither spoke.
Somebody’s dryer thumped behind a utility-room door.
A child shouted upstairs.
Ethan’s coffee had gone cold.
Finally he said, “The lock.”
Nora straightened.
“What about it?”
“Dane’s report says one of his contractors attempted entry.”
Her skin chilled.
“What?”
“He says he was checking whether the unit was occupied.”
“He broke my lock.”
“According to Dane, the contractor was told to verify whether you’d left town.”
“By Lydia?”
Ethan hesitated.
“No.”
Nora stared.
“Then who?”
“My chief of staff.”
She blinked.
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
Nora knew Daniel Ross.
Forty-four, precise, married, two daughters whose softball schedules he mentioned constantly.
He had once spent twenty minutes at a restaurant helping Nora find her lost earring.
“Why would Daniel care where I live?”
“I asked him to arrange a temporary apartment for you.”
“When?”
“Monday.”
“Before I left the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“Did I ask you for one?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him I hadn’t agreed?”
Ethan looked away.
Nora felt a strange, almost peaceful anger.
“You did it again.”
“I was worried.”
“You arranged my life without asking.”
“I thought your building wasn’t secure.”
“So your solution was to have somebody test the door.”
“I didn’t know they would do that.”
“But you started the chain.”
“Yes.”
Nora stood.
Ethan stood too.
She pointed at him.
“No. Sit.”
He sat.
“You keep talking about Lydia like she’s some separate infection in your family.”
He said nothing.
“She is responsible for what she did. Completely. I’m not taking that away from her. But you keep finding little pieces of yourself inside every bad thing she touched.”
Ethan stared at the coffee cup.
“I know.”
“Say something else.”
His throat moved.
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not enough.”
“No.”
He nodded.
Nora sat again.
Her anger had left her shaky.
“What happened to the contractor?”
“Suspended pending review.”
“And Dane?”
“Same.”
“Daniel?”
“I put him on leave.”
“Did he know the contractor would force the lock?”
“He says no.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What?”
“At least you finally don’t know something.”
A small smile touched one corner of his mouth.
Nora pointed at him again.
“Do not smile.”
“It wasn’t voluntary.”
“Control your face.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She nearly laughed.
That annoyed her more.
Upstairs, the baby began crying.
Nora stood immediately.
Ethan did not move.
She paused by the stairwell.
“You can come up for ten minutes.”
He looked at her.
“Only because he should know your voice.”
The smile vanished.
He followed her upstairs.
For the next week, Ethan came only when invited.
He brought diapers once and the wrong size the next time.
He learned how to fasten the gray carrier without twisting the left strap.
He washed bottles badly.
Nora made him wash them again.
He took midnight shifts twice, sitting awake in the living room while the baby slept on his chest and Nora slept in her bedroom with the door open.
There was nothing romantic about it.
That helped.
Lydia did not contact Nora.
She did, however, send a statement through an attorney acknowledging that physical contact had occurred in both confrontations while disputing Nora’s characterization of the first incident.
Nora read the statement at the kitchen table.
She handed it to her sister.
Her sister read the first paragraph.
“She’s exhausting.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to respond?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Nora took the paper back.
Then she called the attorney assisting her with the police report and said she wanted every communication preserved.
She did not post anything online.
She did not call the reporter.
She did not threaten the Mercer family.
That was harder than she expected.
There were moments—especially at three in the morning, especially while looking at the stretched carrier strap—when she wanted everyone to know what Lydia had done.
Then she imagined strangers arguing over her baby’s paternity beneath photographs of her bruised face.
She imagined people deciding whether she looked injured enough.
She imagined Lydia becoming a villain to people who did not know her and Ethan becoming a hero because he had stood in a hallway and said the right sentence once.
The thought made Nora angry all over again.
So she kept the matter private while the police and attorneys did their work.
Not secret.
Private.
She had begun to understand the difference.
The reporter contacted her six days later.
Nora read the email while the baby slept beside her in a bassinet.
The reporter asked about her consulting work for a neighborhood nonprofit two years earlier.
That was the first time Nora understood where the allegation had come from.
Her nonprofit had submitted public comments regarding the River District redevelopment.
Mercer Urban was now bidding on a later phase of the same project.
Nora had met Ethan at a community planning meeting connected to that work.
They had started dating months afterward.
The relationship had never been illegal or hidden from her employer. She had stopped consulting for the nonprofit before Mercer Urban entered the current bid.
But placed carelessly on a page, the facts could look different.
Nora called Ethan.
He answered on the first ring.
“I got the reporter email.”
He went quiet.
“Okay.”
“That’s all?”
“What do you want me to say?”
She smiled despite herself.
“You’re learning.”
“I’m trying.”
“I’m going to answer.”
Another pause.
“Okay.”
“You don’t want to approve it?”
“No.”
“You don’t want your lawyer to rewrite it?”
“Very much.”
She laughed.
“But I’m not going to ask.”
“Good.”
“Nora?”
“Yeah?”
“My board knows.”
Her smile disappeared.
“About me?”
“About the allegation. And about us.”
“The baby?”
“Yes.”
Nora closed her eyes.
“You told them?”
“I had to disclose the potential conflict.”
“Why didn’t you tell me first?”
“I tried. You were asleep.”
“You could have waited.”
“The board meeting was at eight.”
May you like
“You could have texted.”
“I should have.”
