Chương 9
“At the situation.”
“What situation did you think you were in?”
She glanced at Naomi.
“Do I have to answer that?”
“No,” Naomi said. “You may leave whenever you choose.”
The woman looked back at me.
“I thought you were keeping him trapped.”
I almost laughed.
“With what?”
“The pregnancy. The apartment. His job. He said you refused to help him even though you had connections.”
“He did not know my connections.”
“He knew there was somebody.”
That caught me.
“What did he know?”
She rubbed her thumb along the edge of the table.
“He found a letter.”
My mother’s letters.
“When?”
“Last year.”
The room narrowed.
“What letter?”
“I don’t know. It had Riverside letterhead. He said your family had money and you had been hiding it.”
Derek had known more than he admitted.
Naomi leaned forward. “Did he photograph it?”
“He photographed everything.”
“Where are the photographs?”
“On his old phone, maybe. He kept screenshots in a cloud folder.”
“How do you know?”
“He showed me.”
The woman’s voice changed. Resentment replaced caution.
“He showed me the apartment. He showed me trust documents. He said once the babies were born, he could prove you had mixed family money into the marriage.”
“I didn’t.”
“I don’t know what you did.”
“What did he plan to do with the proof?”
“Negotiate.”
The word sat there with all its polite violence.
“He was going to threaten me?”
“He said he needed leverage.”
Naomi asked the woman to describe the folder, the dates, the device, and whether Derek had shared anything with Northbridge. The woman answered until they reached the condominium.
Then she stopped cooperating.
“The deposit was a gift,” she said.
“It came from a joint marital account,” Naomi replied.
“He told me it was his bonus.”
“Do you still intend to purchase the property?”
“That is private.”
“It will become public in discovery.”
The woman stood too quickly and gripped the table.
“I came here to help.”
“You came here because the escrow is frozen,” I said.
Her eyes flashed.
“You think being calm makes you better than everyone.”
“No.”
“You sat there in that hospital like you knew something we didn’t.”
“I did.”
“You let him humiliate me too.”
The accusation startled me.
“I did not bring you there.”
“You could have said who you were.”
“And then what? You would have taken off my coat more politely?”
She stared at me.
Naomi intervened before the exchange became useless. She explained that the woman might have legal exposure if she knowingly accepted diverted funds, but that no one in the room represented her. She advised her to obtain independent counsel.
At the door, the woman turned back.
“He said the babies might not live.”
The words struck harder because she delivered them without malice.
“When?” I asked.
“Before the surgery.”
“He knew they were coming early?”
“He said your doctor was worried.”
Derek had texted me that morning from Dallas. Sorry, stuck in meetings. Call me when you know more.
He had not been in Dallas. Northbridge’s records later showed his conference ended the day before. He had been at the condominium development with the woman, signing preliminary documents while I sat alone during a fetal monitoring appointment.
The woman left.
I made it to the restroom before vomiting.
Naomi waited outside the stall and handed me paper towels under the door.
“I should have known,” I said.
“No.”
“He photographed my mother’s letters.”
“That is not something a spouse expects.”
“There were signs.”
“There are always signs after you know what they mean.”
I sat on the closed toilet lid, shaking.
“I thought he was disappointed in me.”
“He probably was.”
“That isn’t helpful.”
“You hired me for accuracy.”
I laughed weakly.
She waited until I could stand, then drove me back to Riverside herself because she did not trust my grandfather’s driver to avoid reporting every detail.
Emma came off the stronger blood-pressure medication that night.
Noah opened both eyes while I was holding him skin-to-skin for the first time. His face was no bigger than the center of my palm. The respiratory tubing crossed his cheek, secured with soft tape. He smelled faintly of warm plastic and something sweet I could not name.
For forty minutes, I sat with him beneath my gown and listened to his breathing.
No lawyers. No messages. No contracts.
Only the nearly weightless pressure of my son against my chest.
When the nurse returned him to the incubator, I cried so hard she brought me tissues and pretended to check a drawer until I stopped.
My father visited the next day.
He and my mother had divorced when I was twelve. He lived in Vermont, repaired antique clocks, and distrusted wealth in ways that made my distrust look amateur. He had met Derek fewer than ten times and disliked him from the third.
“You’re not allowed to say you told me so,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You look like you were going to.”
“That’s just my face.”
He brought a small wooden box he had made for the babies’ hospital bracelets. The lid did not close properly.
“I measured wrong,” he said. “I’ll fix it.”
“Leave it.”
“It’s crooked.”
“So are they.”
He looked through the glass at Noah and Emma.
“Your mother would have burned his car.”
“She didn’t know how to drive.”
“She could still burn.”
We ate cafeteria soup at a table near the window. He did not ask about the trust, the contract, or the divorce papers. He asked whether the babies had personalities yet.
“Noah kicks off every sensor they put on him. Emma hates being repositioned.”
“So one’s a vandal and one’s a landlord.”
“Apparently.”
He nodded, satisfied.
Before leaving, he said, “Your grandfather called me.”
“That must have been pleasant.”
“He offered to send a plane.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked whether it came with a parachute.”
“You hate flying.”
“Exactly.”
May you like
He put on his coat.
“Harper, having somewhere to land doesn’t make the fall imaginary.”
