Chương 13
For a while neither of us spoke.
The television was off.
The house made ordinary night sounds around us.
Pipes clicked.
The refrigerator hummed.
A car passed outside.
Natalie picked up the stuffed pillow beside her and turned it over twice.
“Do you want to know what I think?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She kept turning the pillow.
“I think you still want one sentence from him that makes all of this less real.”
I looked at her.
“I said I didn’t want to know.”
“You say lots of things.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
I stared at the dark television.
“What sentence?”
She shrugged.
“Something like, ‘I didn’t know,’ or ‘Evan tricked me,’ or ‘I was going to tell you.’”
I said nothing.
“Something that lets you downgrade betrayal into stupidity.”
“That’s harsh.”
“It’s also understandable.”
I looked at my hands.
“What if he didn’t know about the signature?”
“Then he didn’t know about the signature.”
“That matters.”
“Yes.”
Her answer surprised me.
She continued.
“It does not erase the company, the hidden payments, the ownership plan, or the fact that he was waiting until after you gave birth to pressure you.”
I swallowed.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
She stopped turning the pillow.
“I’m not going to keep saying it.”
That was one of the things I loved about Natalie.
She could be relentless until she sensed the line between persistence and cruelty.
At two in the morning, I woke to a cramp low in my abdomen.
Natalie was asleep on the other side of the bed because she had refused the guest room on principle.
I stared at the ceiling and waited.
The cramp faded.
Then another came twelve minutes later.
I reached for my phone.
Natalie woke instantly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Your nothing voice is different from your normal voice.”
“I had a contraction.”
She sat up.
“How long?”
“Not long.”
“Another?”
“One before.”
“How far apart?”
“Twelve minutes.”
She was already reaching for her own phone.
“Don’t panic.”
“I’m not panicking.”
“You look like you’re calling the National Guard.”
“I’m opening a timer.”
The next contraction came seventeen minutes later.
Then nothing for nearly half an hour.
My doctor’s after-hours nurse advised hydration, rest, and monitoring unless the pattern became regular or other symptoms appeared.
Natalie brought me water and made me drink all of it.
“This is stress,” I said.
“Maybe.”
“I’m not in labor.”
“Probably not.”
“I’m still a month early.”
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Stop trying to argue your uterus into compliance.”
I lay back against the pillows.
“That is medically offensive.”
“I’m very comfortable with that.”
At four, I finally slept.
At seven twenty, the doorbell rang.
I woke before Natalie did.
For one irrational second, I forgot everything.
Then Caleb’s voice came through the door.
“Claire.”
Natalie sat upright.
“Oh, hell.”
I was already moving.
She grabbed my wrist.
“Wait.”
“He’s here.”
“Yes, I gathered.”
She reached for her phone.
“Call Marcus.”
“I’m not calling my lawyer before opening my own front door.”
“Your lawyer specifically told you to call him.”
I looked at her.
She held out the phone.
I called.
Marcus answered sounding fully awake, which I found suspicious.
“He’s here.”
“Is he alone?”
I went downstairs and looked through the side window.
Caleb stood on the porch with a duffel bag.
A black sedan was parked at the curb.
Evan sat behind the wheel.
“No.”
“Who?”
“Evan.”
“Do not let Evan inside.”
“What about Caleb?”
“That is your decision, subject to the current occupancy dispute and the notice already served.”
The legal answer was irritatingly useless.
“He looks exhausted.”
“Claire.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I hung up before he could continue.
Natalie followed me to the foyer.
“You don’t have to open it.”
“I know.”
Caleb rang again.
“Claire, please.”
His voice through the door did not sound angry.
That made opening it harder.
I unlocked the deadbolt but kept the chain engaged.
When I opened the door several inches, Caleb looked at the chain first.
Then at me.
His face was pale and unshaven.
He wore the same linen shirt from Diane’s photograph, wrinkled now beneath a jacket.
“You changed the locks.”
“Yes.”
His eyes moved past me and landed on Natalie.
“Oh.”
“Good morning,” she said.
He looked back at me.
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
The word hurt physically.
His mouth tightened.
“Claire, this is my home too.”
“You can discuss that with Marcus.”
“I don’t want to discuss my marriage with Marcus.”
“Then why is Evan sitting in the car?”
Caleb glanced toward the curb.
“He drove me from the airport.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“He’s my attorney.”
“And apparently a business partner.”
“He is not my business partner.”
“Registered agent.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“I know.”
He flinched at the answer.
For a moment we simply looked at each other through four inches of open doorway.
I noticed a small cut near his thumb.
I almost asked what happened.
The instinct disgusted me.
He noticed my eyes.
“Claire, I didn’t know your signature was copied.”
“Then whose did you think it was?”
“Yours.”
“Why?”
“Because Evan said the documents had been approved.”
“By me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Caleb swallowed.
“He said you had authorized the transition package through the company template.”
I stared at him.
“You believed that.”
“I thought you had changed your mind.”
“Without speaking to you.”
His jaw worked.
“I thought Marcus had advised you.”
“Why would Marcus help me approve a company I didn’t know existed?”
“I thought you knew by then.”
“By yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Brooke said she told you.”
The answer landed strangely.
“Brooke told me?”
“That’s what she said.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“She never told me anything.”
Caleb looked toward the driveway.
Something passed across his face.
Not surprise.
Calculation.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t know what I believe.”
His eyes came back to mine.
“That is the first true thing you’ve said.”
He winced.
“Okay.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
May you like
“Okay.”
Then he lowered them.
