Chương 2
For the first time, something uncertain passed through his expression.
It lasted less than a second.
Then Laura whispered his name.
His attention shifted toward her again.
That was all I needed.
I slipped the clutch beneath my arm.
“Good night, Margaret.”
Elijah blinked.
His mother did not.
“Alex,” he said.
I turned.
There was no panic in his voice.
No apology.
Only irritation that I had moved before being dismissed properly.
“I said go home.”
“I’m not going home.”
That got his full attention.
I walked away before he could ask what I meant.
The ballroom doors were heavier than they looked.
A hotel employee reached one before I did and opened it without meeting my eyes.
“Mrs. Mercer,” he murmured.
“Thank you.”
My voice sounded normal.
That bothered me more than crying would have.
Outside the ballroom, the music returned behind the closing doors.
So did conversation, slowly at first, then all at once.
The gala would survive.
People were remarkably efficient at restarting an evening after witnessing someone else’s life crack open.
I made it to the women’s restroom on the mezzanine before my hands began shaking.
There were three empty stalls, a wall of pale stone sinks, and a vase filled with lilies so fragrant they made my stomach turn.
I locked myself inside the last stall and sat on the closed toilet.
My phone showed nine missed notifications.
Four were from people in the ballroom.
One was from my sister, Megan, who had sent a picture of her cat sleeping inside a laundry basket.
Two were airline alerts.
One was from the car service I had scheduled for ten-thirty.
The final message was from Dr. Samuel Reed.
I stared at his name.
The text contained only six words.
Your mother is asking for you.
I closed my eyes.
That was why I had a flight.
Not because of Elijah.
Not originally.
At four that afternoon, while a stylist was pinning my hair for the gala, a hospice nurse in Seattle had called to say my mother had stopped eating.
The nurse had been kind in the precise, practiced way of someone who knew kindness could not change the information she was delivering.
I had booked the last nonstop flight before telling Elijah.
Then I had called him twice.
He had not answered.
I had decided to attend the gala because Mercer Hospitality was announcing a foundation partnership that night and because Elijah had complained for weeks that spouses needed to appear united.
United.
The word now felt obscene.
Someone entered the restroom.
Heels clicked against stone.
A faucet ran.
I kept my feet lifted slightly, irrationally unwilling to be recognized by shoes.
The woman hummed under her breath while washing her hands.
Then the door opened and closed again.
I lowered my feet.
For twenty seconds, I sat there staring at the floor.
Then I stood, unlocked the stall, and washed the blood from the corner of my mouth.
The woman in the mirror had one red cheek, swollen eyes, and an elaborate twist of dark hair that suddenly looked ridiculous.
I pulled out the pins one by one.
They clicked into the sink.
By the seventh pin, I started laughing.
It was not a pleasant sound.
“Five hundred dollars,” I told my reflection.
The stylist had charged five hundred dollars for hair I had destroyed in under a minute.
My mother would have found that hilarious.
She had cut her own hair with sewing scissors until she was sixty-eight.
I put the pins in my clutch because leaving them scattered in a hotel sink seemed rude.
Even now, apparently, I could be humiliated, abandoned, and running to my dying mother while still worrying about inconveniencing housekeeping.
My phone rang.
Elijah.
I watched it vibrate until the call ended.
He called again immediately.
I declined it.
A message appeared.
Where are you?
Then another.
We are not doing this tonight.
I stared at the words until something inside me became very quiet.
I typed, My mother is dying.
My thumb hovered above send.
Then I deleted the sentence.
He had known she was in hospice.
He had known her condition had worsened.
He had also known our anniversary date.
Knowledge had never been the problem.
I opened the airline app instead.
Boarding began at 11:15 p.m.
The car would arrive in seventeen minutes.
When I stepped out of the restroom, Margaret Mercer was waiting beside the elevator.
She had left the ballroom without her wrap.
Her silver hair was immaculate, but her mouth had gone hard.
“Let me see your face.”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
Under different circumstances, I might have smiled.
I stepped closer.
Margaret examined my cheek without touching it.
“Did he break the skin?”
“Inside my mouth.”
Her nostrils flared.
For years, Margaret and I had maintained a careful relationship built on mutual usefulness and selective affection.
She considered me too forgiving.
I considered her too ruthless.
Neither of us had ever said those things directly.
Tonight she looked older than she had at dinner.
“I raised him better than that,” she said.
I looked toward the elevator numbers.
“I’m not sure people are products with warranties.”
“That sounds like your mother.”
“It is.”
Margaret’s eyes moved to my purse.
“You’re leaving.”
“Yes.”
“For the house?”
“Seattle.”
She knew immediately.
Unlike Elijah.
Or perhaps more accurately, unlike Elijah when nothing forced him to remember.
“Oh,” Margaret said.
It was the smallest word I had ever heard from her.
“She stopped eating.”
Margaret lowered her gaze.
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
“And you came here anyway?”
“Elijah said tonight mattered.”
Margaret’s mouth tightened again, but this time the anger was not aimed at me.
The elevator arrived.
I stepped inside.
Margaret followed.
“You’re not going alone.”
“I am.”
“Alex.”
“I don’t have energy to argue with you.”
“That has never stopped either of us before.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
The doors closed.
May you like
Margaret pressed the lobby button.
“I can arrange the company jet.”
