Chương 7
His phone buzzed on the coffee table.
Margaret.
He let it ring.
Nora watched the screen go dark.
“You can answer.”
“I don’t want to.”
“That’s different from not being allowed.”
“I know.”
It rang again.
Ethan stood and carried the phone into the kitchen.
He answered.
“Hello.”
Margaret did not say his name.
She said, “Is Nora all right?”
“Yes.”
“And the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He waited.
“I would like to speak to her.”
“No.”
Margaret inhaled sharply.
“I did not ask your permission.”
“She doesn’t want to speak to you.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“You’ve always been very eager to interpret other people’s wishes when they relieve you of making your own decisions.”
He looked toward the living room.
Nora could probably hear every word.
“Maybe.”
Margaret seemed unprepared for agreement.
“I understand you spoke to Leonard.”
“Yes.”
“Then you understand the position you’ve created.”
“I understand my position.”
“You embarrassed the company.”
“I embarrassed myself.”
“You frightened six people.”
“Yes.”
“You destroyed my dining room.”
“I destroyed one table, several plates, at least four glasses, and the centerpiece.”
“This is not funny.”
“No.”
“You could have hurt someone.”
“I know.”
“You could have hurt me.”
The sentence stopped him.
He put one hand on the counter.
“I know.”
Margaret’s voice softened almost imperceptibly.
“You looked like your father.”
Ethan did not move.
There were sentences that seemed to arrive from a different decade.
His father had never struck Ethan or Caroline.
He had, however, thrown things.
A phone once.
A crystal decanter.
A framed photograph that shattered near Margaret’s feet when Ethan was fifteen.
The family version had always been that Richard Hale had a temper during stressful years, that he had worked too much, that he later regretted it.
Ethan had not thought about the broken photograph in years.
It came back whole: Caroline crying on the stairs, his mother sweeping glass in silence, his father locked in the study.
Margaret said, “I spent years making excuses for that.”
Ethan swallowed.
“I’m not Dad.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Use him because it hurts.”
“I’m telling you what I saw.”
“You saw me flip a table.”
“Yes.”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive it.”
“You haven’t asked me anything.”
He gripped the edge of the counter.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to come here.”
“No.”
“We need to speak in person.”
“We can speak now.”
“I will not have this conversation by telephone.”
“Then we won’t have it.”
Margaret went quiet.
The silence stretched so long Ethan checked the screen to see whether the call had dropped.
Finally she said, “Leonard thinks you should make a statement.”
“He told me not to make one.”
“Publicly, for now. The board will need something eventually.”
“I gave them my account.”
“That is not what I mean.”
Of course it wasn’t.
“What do you mean?”
“A statement acknowledging that you reacted to a misunderstanding.”
“It wasn’t a misunderstanding.”
“Nora fell.”
“After you grabbed her.”
“I touched her wrist.”
“She was trying to leave.”
“Because she did not like what I was saying.”
“Adults get to leave rooms.”
“You never did.”
The words were out before either of them could avoid hearing them.
Ethan looked down at the kitchen floor.
Margaret said, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Say it.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“When Dad got angry, you stayed.”
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“It might.”
“I stayed because I had two children and a company with thirty employees who depended on us and a husband who was not a monster, regardless of what you have apparently decided to remember.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“You implied it.”
“No. I said you stayed.”
“And now you think leaving is always courage.”
“I didn’t say that either.”
“You don’t have to. Denver says it for you.”
There it was.
They could walk circles around the incident forever and still arrive at the same place.
“You think Nora is making me leave.”
“I think you have changed.”
“I’m almost forty. That happens.”
“You changed after you married her.”
“Yes.”
Margaret exhaled hard.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes.”
“She has isolated you from this family.”
“I saw you four days ago.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I know what you want to mean.”
The living room floor creaked behind him.
Nora appeared in the doorway.
He looked at her.
She held out her hand.
Not for the phone.
For him.
Ethan crossed the kitchen and took it.
Margaret said his name.
“I’m here.”
“I need you to understand that if you turn this into a public accusation against me, the board will not protect you because you are my son.”
“I’m not asking them to.”
“You are next in line to run that company.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be.”
Nora’s fingers tightened.
Margaret went silent.
Ethan could hear a faint mechanical hum on her end, perhaps the wine refrigerator in the butler’s pantry.
“You don’t mean that,” she said.
He looked at Nora.
“I don’t know yet.”
Margaret hung up.
The following Monday, Ethan was not allowed to enter Hale & Mercer’s headquarters without notifying human resources.
He had worked in the building for seventeen years.
The restriction was standard during executive leave, Leonard explained.
Ethan found that almost comforting.
If it had been invented specifically for him, it would have felt personal.
Instead he sat at home in sweatpants while employees he had hired attended meetings without him.
At ten fifteen, he repaired the kitchen drawer.
It took nine minutes.
The problem was one loose screw and a warped wooden glide he could have fixed a year earlier.
Nora stood behind him holding a mug.
“You’re insufferable.”
He pushed the drawer closed.
“It works.”
“That’s why.”
He opened it again.
Closed it.
“Beautiful.”
“You’re unemployed for three days and suddenly you’re a contractor.”
“Paid leave.”
“One drawer.”
May you like
“Don’t diminish my craft.”
She smiled and went to answer a work email.
