Chương 6
Emma waited.
“You’ll be paid,” he said.
“For today?”
“For as long as you need.”
She put down the sandwich.
“No.”
Alexander frowned.
“No?”
“I’m not taking indefinite pay.”
“You’re injured because of something that happened in my house.”
“I was injured because your wife hit me.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Alexander leaned against the doorframe.
He looked as though he had not eaten.
Emma pushed the second half of the sandwich toward him.
He looked at it.
“Is this some kind of statement?”
“You look terrible.”
He took the sandwich.
For a minute they ate in silence.
Mrs. Alvarez came through carrying a basket of dish towels, saw them, and said in Spanish, “Finally, somebody makes him eat.”
Alexander looked at Emma.
“What did she say?”
“She said your tie was ugly.”
He glanced down.
He had removed the tie an hour earlier.
Emma smiled despite herself.
Mrs. Alvarez snorted and kept walking.
It was the first normal moment of the day.
That was why Emma remembered it.
Alexander finished the sandwich.
Then he said, “I should have listened sooner.”
“You didn’t know.”
“You told me I wasn’t here.”
“That isn’t the same as knowing.”
“No.”
He looked toward the ceiling.
“I knew she was unhappy.”
Emma waited.
“I knew she was having trouble after Noah was born. I knew she hated being alone. I kept thinking more help would fix it.”
“You hired more help.”
“Yes.”
“That helped.”
“Did it?”
“For Noah.”
Alexander looked at her.
Emma did not soften it.
He nodded.
“For Noah.”
He rubbed one thumb against the edge of the counter.
“I thought if I took enough things off her plate, she’d feel like herself again.”
“Maybe she didn’t want fewer things.”
“What did she want?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew her better than I did.”
Emma almost laughed.
“No.”
“You were with her every day.”
“That doesn’t mean I knew her.”
Alexander looked down.
“I keep doing that.”
“What?”
“Assuming proximity means knowledge.”
Emma understood what he meant.
He had lived in the same house as Victoria.
Emma had been in the same rooms.
Neither had fully known what was happening inside her.
Before Emma left, Alexander gave her the card of the family’s attorney.
She did not want it.
He insisted.
“If anyone from my family calls you, don’t talk to them.”
“Why would they?”
Alexander looked tired.
“You’ve never met my mother.”
Emma put the card in her pocket.
Her father opened the door to his apartment wearing one slipper.
“What happened to your face?”
Emma had considered lying.
She had even invented something during the drive: cabinet door, stupid accident, don’t worry.
She looked at her father.
He was sixty-three, short, gray-haired, and carrying a pipe wrench despite the fact that his building superintendent had specifically asked him not to touch the sink again.
“My boss’s wife slapped me.”
His eyebrows rose.
Then his expression changed.
“Why?”
Emma walked past him.
“You ask terrible first questions.”
“I meant what happened.”
“That is not what you asked.”
He shut the door.
The apartment smelled like fried onions and the lemon cleaner he used on everything.
Emma sat at the small kitchen table where she had done homework through most of high school.
Her father put the wrench down.
“Start over.”
She did.
When she reached the part about the bassinet, he sat across from her.
He did not interrupt again.
After she finished, he folded his hands.
“You quit.”
It was not a question.
“I don’t know.”
“Emma.”
“I need the money.”
“I have money.”
“You have thirty-seven dollars in your checking account.”
His mouth opened.
She pointed.
“You left your bank app open last week.”
“That’s private.”
“You asked me to fix your password.”
He looked offended.
Then less offended.
“Thirty-seven dollars is still money.”
Emma laughed.
Her cheek hurt again.
She pressed a cold spoon against it.
Her father watched her.
“You’re going back there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Baby still there?”
“With his father.”
“Good father?”
Emma hesitated.
“He loves him.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
She looked at him.
Apparently terrible questions ran in the family.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Her father nodded.
That night, Emma slept badly.
At 2:18 a.m. she woke convinced she heard bassinet wheels on marble.
Her room was dark.
A delivery truck hissed to a stop outside on the street.
She lay staring at the ceiling until the engine moved away.
At 2:43 her phone lit.
A message from an unknown number.
Emma Reed?
She did not answer.
Another appeared.
This is Caroline Hale. Alexander’s mother. I’d like to speak privately before this becomes more damaging for everyone.
Emma read it twice.
Then she took the attorney’s card from her purse.
She did not call.
Instead she took a screenshot of the message and sent it to Daniel.
He replied within a minute.
Do not respond.
Emma typed, Were you awake?
Three dots appeared.
I work for Alexander Hale.
She smiled despite herself.
Then another message arrived.
Daniel: Also I have insomnia.
Emma put the phone face down.
The next morning, Caroline Hale called three times.
Emma ignored all three.
At ten, a courier delivered flowers.
White orchids.
There was no card.
Her father stared at them from the kitchen.
“Funeral flowers.”
“They’re orchids.”
“Rich funeral flowers.”
Emma threw them away.
Then she felt guilty because the flowers had done nothing wrong.
She took them back out, trimmed the stems, and put them in a chipped blue pitcher on the windowsill.
Human beings, she thought, were ridiculous.
By Tuesday, her face had become an administrative problem.
The household employment agency called.
Her coordinator, Susan Merritt, spoke in the careful voice people used when they were afraid a conversation might later be quoted.
“We were informed there was an incident.”
Emma sat on the edge of her bed.
“An incident.”
“That’s the wording I received.”
“I was slapped.”
A pause.
May you like
“I’m sorry.”
“And a baby was almost pushed down stairs.”
