Chương 9
He swallowed.
"But those were our mistakes to make, not yours to erase."
Graham said nothing.
Adrian left him in the elevator.
Evelyn Marsh finally agreed to a deposition in late November.
Dana called Adrian afterward.
"You need to sit down."
He was already sitting.
"What?"
"She kept records."
Adrian closed his eyes.
"How bad?"
"Worse for your father. Not better for Claire. Complicated for you."
"Send them."
The first document was an email printed from an old internal system.
FROM: CLAIRE BENNETT
TO: ADRIAN COLE
SUBJECT: PLEASE READ THIS YOURSELF
The message had been sent six years earlier.
Adrian read it.
Then read it again.
Adrian, they're alive. All four. I don't know what I'm doing. Your father says you don't want contact while the lawyers work things out. I don't believe him. I need you to call me directly. Not through him. Not through Peter. Please.
His hands began shaking.
The email had never reached his inbox.
Beneath it was a forwarding record.
Evelyn Marsh had routed the message to Graham.
Graham responded:
Do not deliver. AC is not stable enough for this. PB has agreed communication should remain through counsel.
Adrian stared at PB.
Peter Sloane.
Another document showed a call from Claire to Adrian's office.
Evelyn's handwritten note read:
Per GC, no transfer. Told CB Adrian is unavailable and requests no direct contact.
Adrian stopped reading.
He walked to the bathroom in his office and vomited.
Afterward he sat on the closed toilet lid for ten minutes.
His phone rang twice.
He ignored it.
The third call was Claire.
He nearly rejected it.
Then answered.
"Did Dana send you the records?"
"Yes."
Claire was silent.
Adrian wiped his mouth with a paper towel.
"Why didn't you keep trying?"
The question was unfair.
He knew it while asking.
Claire answered anyway.
"I did. For a while."
"For how long?"
"Two weeks."
"Two weeks."
"I had four premature babies."
His head dropped.
She continued.
"I was recovering. Rebecca was doing night feeds. Daniel was working. Your father had a lawyer calling me every day. Peter kept saying you wanted distance. I called your office. I emailed. I sent a letter."
"A letter?"
"It came back."
"Why?"
"Wrong address."
"I lived there for three years."
"Graham had your mail forwarded while you were traveling."
Adrian pressed his fingers to his eyes.
Claire said, "Then you sent me flowers."
He looked up.
"I never sent you flowers."
"I know that now."
"What did the card say?"
Her voice became quieter.
"That you were sorry, but it was better if we didn't make grief harder by staying in contact."
Adrian stood.
His knees felt unstable.
"Graham sent them."
"Probably."
"And you believed it."
"Yes."
"After the email?"
"After everything."
She stopped.
"When someone with enough power tells you the same thing through enough different doors, eventually it feels like the building."
Adrian leaned against the wall.
He wanted to tell her she should have fought harder.
Then he thought about six years of believing four babies were dead because one doctor had told him and his father had confirmed it.
He had not fought either.
"Claire."
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry I left."
She inhaled.
Adrian continued before courage became performance.
"I was scared. I told myself work needed me. It didn't. I wanted a place where nobody could ask me what I wanted to do about four babies because I had no idea."
Claire did not rescue him.
"Okay."
It was the right response.
Not forgiveness.
Just acknowledgment.
Adrian said, "I'm still angry at you."
"I know."
"I don't know what I do with that."
"You don't have to do anything today."
He almost smiled.
"Dana would like that answer."
"Dana terrifies me."
"Good."
Silence stretched.
Then Claire said, "Theo has his school play Friday."
Adrian frowned.
"What play?"
"You don't know?"
"No."
Another failure.
Small this time.
Manageable.
"He's a tree."
Adrian stared at the sink.
"A tree."
"He wanted to be a narrator. He got tree."
"Is he upset?"
"Extremely."
"What time?"
"Six-thirty."
"I'll be there."
"You have the hospital board dinner."
He looked at himself in the mirror.
For six years he had been excellent at attending the wrong thing.
"I'll be at the school."
Theo's tree had one line.
Technically, it was not even a line.
He and three other children were supposed to whisper, "The forest remembers."
Theo forgot.
The child beside him whispered it twice.
Theo stared into the audience, wearing brown construction paper around his waist and three green felt leaves clipped to his shoulders.
Then he saw Adrian.
His eyes widened.
Adrian lifted one hand.
Theo said his line half a beat late.
Afterward he pretended the delay had not happened.
Adrian pretended too.
They ate pizza in a place where the napkin dispenser was sticky.
Owen fell asleep against Nina.
Jack stole Adrian's last pepperoni.
Miles asked if a person could legally have two dads if both dads were dead, except one turned out not dead because nobody knew he was the dad.
Nina stared at her soda.
Claire covered her mouth.
Adrian said, "That is a question for a lawyer."
Miles groaned.
"Everything is a question for a lawyer."
"Welcome to my life."
Theo looked at Adrian.
"You came."
"I said I would."
"People say things."
Adrian felt the sentence somewhere under his ribs.
"Yeah."
Theo took a sip of lemonade.
"Okay."
That was all.
In December, prosecutors opened an inquiry after the corporate review discovered additional records.
Graham resigned from two family boards.
Peter Sloane hired criminal counsel.
Evelyn Marsh requested immunity before providing more documents.
The media called it the Cole custody conspiracy.
Adrian hated the phrase.
It made the boys sound like a plot.
The company stock dipped, recovered, then dipped again when a business channel reported that Graham had used corporate resources in the concealment.
Adrian lost a chairman vote by one.
Not his job.
May you like
The chairmanship he had expected to assume in January.
Graham retained enough allies to block him.
