Chương 2
Eric laughed first.
Then someone near the kitchen did.
A few others smiled because Martin was smiling and that had become a habit in this family.
I looked around the room.
Forty-seven.
That number came into my head without invitation.
Not everyone there worked for my company, but forty-seven members of this family did.
Martin had been the first.
Eight years earlier, he had lost a regional operations job after a merger and spent nine months pretending unemployment was early retirement.
Claire had asked whether I could find him something.
I had.
Then came Eric.
Then Claire’s younger brother, Nathan.
Then cousins.
Spouses.
A nephew.
Two in-laws whose names I initially had to write down so I could remember which branch of the Collins family they belonged to.
I had made excuses for them.
I had approved salaries above market because Claire said her father would feel insulted otherwise.
I had tolerated positions that should never have existed.
All because Claire had asked me to keep one fact quiet.
The company was mine.
Not partly mine.
Not inherited.
Not managed on behalf of investors.
Mine.
Whitaker Home Solutions had begun with a borrowed van, six thousand dollars I could barely afford to lose, and a storage unit where the pipes froze every January.
By that Christmas Eve, the company operated across three states and had been valued at sixteen point nine million dollars during our most recent financing review.
Martin believed a private investment group owned it.
He believed I worked somewhere near the bottom.
Claire had encouraged that misunderstanding.
“They’ll act weird if they know,” she had told me years ago.
I had mistaken secrecy for marital compromise.
Now she watched me holding divorce papers while her daughter-by-marriage shivered outside.
I closed the folder.
“Where is Sophie’s coat?”
Claire blinked.
“Did you hear anything I said?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it?”
“What would you like me to do?”
“I don’t know, Daniel.”
For the first time, her composure slipped.
“React.”
“I am reacting.”
“No, you’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“That cold, quiet thing where you make everybody feel like they’re stupid.”
Martin snorted.
“That would require him to be the smartest person in the room.”
I looked at him.
He smiled.
For years, I had wondered what Martin might be like if he ever discovered the truth.
I had imagined embarrassment.
Maybe an apology.
Sometimes, on less charitable days, I had imagined his face.
Standing there, I felt none of the satisfaction I had expected.
I felt tired.
“Sophie’s coat,” I said again.
Linda rose quickly.
“I’ll get it.”
“And her charger.”
“I can—”
“Her blue one is beside the guest bed.”
Sophie had stayed there often enough for Linda to know.
That made what happened outside somehow worse.
Linda disappeared upstairs.
Claire folded her arms.
“You need to be out of the house tomorrow.”
“Our house?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I actually don’t.”
“The house is in my name.”
“No, Claire.”
Her expression changed.
“What?”
“The deed is held by a trust.”
Martin laughed again.
“Listen to the handyman giving a real estate seminar.”
I ignored him.
Claire stared at me.
“What trust?”
“We can discuss property with attorneys.”
A small silence opened between us.
She had known about the company.
Apparently, she had forgotten how much else she had chosen not to know.
Eric pushed himself away from the table.
“Jesus, Danny, don’t start playing games because she finally dumped you.”
“I’m not playing anything.”
“You’ve been living off my sister for years.”
That one almost made me laugh.
Claire flinched.
It was slight.
Eric did not notice.
I did.
“You should sit down, Eric.”
“Or what?”
“Nothing.”
He stepped closer anyway.
“Exactly.”
Linda returned carrying Sophie’s coat, charger, and hardcover novel.
She handed them to me without meeting my eyes.
“Tell her I’m sorry she got upset.”
I looked at her.
“Got upset?”
Linda swallowed.
Outside, a car horn sounded twice from somewhere down the street.
Normal life continued with astonishing indifference.
People were arriving at parties.
Somebody was probably carrying a pie to a neighbor’s house.
A dog barked.
I tucked Sophie’s charger into the coat pocket.
“Merry Christmas, Linda.”
I turned toward the door.
Martin called after me.
“Daniel.”
I stopped.
“You might want to start looking for somewhere affordable.”
I looked back.
He swirled the drink in his glass.
“Divorce isn’t cheap, and Claire isn’t going to support you forever.”
Claire closed her eyes.
She knew.
That was the remarkable part.
She knew exactly what Martin was saying and exactly how wrong he was, and she still said nothing.
I nodded once.
Then I walked out.
Sophie was sitting in the passenger seat with the heater running.
I handed her the coat and the book.
“You got it.”
“I said I would.”
She held the novel against her chest.
“Are you divorced now?”
“Not quite that fast.”
“Are you going to be?”
I put the truck into reverse.
“Yes.”
She looked through the windshield.
“Okay.”
That single word contained more exhaustion than any crying had.
We drove for several minutes without speaking.
At a red light, Sophie said, “Can we not go home?”
I glanced at her.
“Why?”
“Claire will be there eventually.”
She rubbed her hands together in front of the vent.
“I don’t want to see her.”
I turned right instead of left.
“Where are we going?”
“My office.”
“The little one?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“What other office?”
That question landed strangely.
Sophie knew I owned the company, but she had never visited headquarters.
To her, my work still meant trucks, tools, invoices at the kitchen table, and phone calls I took in the garage so I would not wake anyone.
“Headquarters.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to make some calls.”
“It’s Christmas Eve.”
“I know.”
She watched me for another moment.
“Dad.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t do something insane because of me.”
I tightened my hands on the steering wheel.
May you like
“I’m not doing it because of you.”
That answer was true enough to frighten me.
