Chương 5
“You’ve had three weeks.”
“I’ve had three years.”
That stopped me.
Claire breathed into the phone.
When she spoke again, the anger had thinned.
“Do you think tonight is why I want a divorce?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I think tonight is why I’m going to sign.”
Silence.
Then she said, “Come home.”
“Not tonight.”
“Daniel.”
“Sophie doesn’t want to be there.”
“So she gets to decide everything now?”
I stood so quickly the chair rolled backward into the credenza.
Sophie looked up.
“Do not make her responsible for this.”
“I’m not.”
“You just did.”
“I’m saying our marriage cannot revolve around whether a sixteen-year-old approves of me.”
“Our marriage is ending because you handed me papers.”
“Because you disappeared inside it years ago.”
I stopped pacing.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I got tired of being married to a man who never tells anyone anything.”
“You knew everything that mattered.”
“No, Daniel.”
Her voice cracked for the first time.
“I knew facts.”
I said nothing.
Claire continued.
“You think because I knew about the company, I knew you.”
“That’s not fair either.”
“You kept this whole life separate.”
“You asked me to.”
“I asked you not to tell Dad you owned the company.”
“You asked me to let your family believe I was beneath them.”
“I didn’t ask them to treat you badly.”
“You watched them do it.”
“So did you.”
That one found its mark.
I sat slowly on the corner of my desk.
Claire’s breathing was unsteady.
“So maybe we’re both cowards.”
Neither of us spoke for several seconds.
Then I said, “Your father put my daughter outside without a coat.”
“I know.”
“And you let her stand there.”
“I know.”
The second answer was barely audible.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I know.”
I heard what might have been a sob, quickly swallowed.
Then Claire said, “Are you going to fire them?”
My eyes moved to the report.
There it was.
Not love.
Not the house.
Not even the divorce.
The question underneath everything.
“How do you know I could?”
“Because I know you.”
“No.”
I looked at Sophie.
“You know facts.”
Claire went quiet again.
When she answered, her voice had gone cold.
“Don’t punish forty-seven people because you hate my father.”
“I don’t hate your father.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“For the first time in eight years?”
I touched the compensation report.
“My job.”
Claire did not answer immediately.
When she finally spoke, the anger in her voice had been replaced by something flatter.
“You’ve wanted to say that for years.”
“No.”
“Yes, you have.”
I looked at the reports covering my desk.
“I wanted not to need to say it.”
“That sounds like you.”
“What does?”
“Making resentment sound noble.”
I almost argued, then stopped.
There were too many things about our marriage I had protected by refusing to examine them closely.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Daniel, wait.”
“I’m not discussing employees with you.”
“They’re my family.”
“They’re employees.”
“They’re both.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
She inhaled sharply.
“So this is punishment.”
“No.”
“It feels like punishment.”
“Feelings aren’t personnel policy.”
“You hear yourself, right?”
“Yes.”
“God.”
She laughed once, without humor.
“You become this person when you’re scared.”
“What person?”
“The CEO.”
I glanced through the glass.
Sophie was standing near the lobby windows, watching snow settle over the employee parking lot.
“That’s my job.”
“No, that’s your hiding place.”
For a moment, neither of us said anything.
Then Claire whispered, “Merry Christmas, Daniel.”
She ended the call.
I lowered the phone.
Sophie turned around.
“She mad?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Good talk, then.”
“Apparently.”
She walked back into the office and handed me one of two candy bars she had discovered in a cabinet.
“Expiration date says September.”
“What year?”
She checked.
“This year.”
“Luxury.”
We ate stale chocolate because every restaurant we called was closed.
At twelve thirty, I booked a room at a business hotel ten minutes from headquarters.
Sophie fell asleep before we reached it.
I carried her backpack inside while she shuffled behind me wearing my jacket over her sweater.
The night clerk looked about nineteen and wore a plastic reindeer pin on his vest.
He glanced at us, glanced at the hour, and wisely asked no questions.
The room had two beds, beige curtains, and a framed photograph of a bridge that could have been located anywhere on earth.
Sophie claimed the bed nearest the heater.
I took the other.
She was asleep within minutes.
I was not.
At two seventeen, I was still staring at the ceiling while the ventilation unit clicked on and off.
Claire’s words kept returning.
You become this person when you’re scared.
I hated that she might be right.
The company had always been easier than marriage.
A broken furnace behaved according to physics.
A payroll problem had numbers.
A bad branch manager could be measured, warned, replaced.
People you loved offered no such clean procedures.
At three, I checked my phone.
There was one message from Claire.
I’m sorry about Sophie.
Nothing else.
I typed several answers and deleted all of them.
At four thirty, I finally slept.
At seven fifteen, Sophie shook my shoulder.
“Dad.”
I opened one eye.
“What?”
“Merry Christmas.”
She was holding two paper cups.
“Where did you get coffee?”
“Lobby.”
“You’re sixteen.”
“They didn’t card me for caffeine.”
I sat up.
The coffee was terrible.
I drank half of it anyway.
Sophie sat cross-legged on the other bed.
“Are we going to headquarters?”
“I am.”
“I’m coming.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I’m not sitting alone in a hotel on Christmas.”
That was difficult to argue with.
We stopped at a convenience store on the way.
Sophie bought powdered donuts, orange juice, and a toothbrush because hers was still at home.
I bought nothing.
She placed a toothbrush beside my elbow at the register.
“You need one too.”
“I have one at home.”
May you like
“You’re not going home.”
The cashier looked between us with the bored curiosity of someone accustomed to strangers having complicated mornings.
