Chương 4
“I don’t know.”
That answer seemed to calm her more than anything reassuring might have.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen like this,” she said.
I nearly ended the call.
Instead, I said, “You’ll need to be more specific.”
She made a small sound that might have been a laugh or another sob.
“The baby.”
“His breathing isn’t your fault.”
“No.”
Another pause.
“I meant all of it.”
There it was.
The conversation we had avoided by never having one.
I pressed my thumb into the edge of my phone.
“Not tonight.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“Take care of your son.”
“He has Grant’s ears.”
The sentence caught me off guard.
Melissa sniffed.
“I’m sorry, that was stupid.”
“No.”
I looked at the automatic doors opening and closing as strangers entered with overnight bags, flowers, coffee cups, and tired faces.
“It was just something a mother would notice.”
She went quiet.
Then she whispered, “Thank you.”
I ended the call before gratitude could become intimacy.
Inside the hospital, the smell of disinfectant and burnt coffee hit me at once.
A volunteer at the information desk was arguing with an elderly man who insisted his wife had been transferred to a room that apparently did not exist.
Nobody paid attention to me until someone recognized my face from the television mounted above the vending machines.
A woman nudged her husband.
He looked.
I kept walking.
The elevator doors opened on the maternity floor.
Grant stood in the hallway outside a set of locked NICU doors, filling out a form on a clipboard.
His handwriting was terrible.
It had always been terrible.
He glanced up when he heard me.
For one second, relief showed.
Then caution returned.
“You came up.”
“I’m waiting until we know the baby is stable.”
He nodded.
“That’s more than I deserve.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn basic decency into absolution.”
His mouth tightened.
“All right.”
A nurse came through the locked doors.
“Mr. Hale?”
Grant stepped forward.
“I’m Dr. Patel.”
The woman removed her mask and tucked it into her pocket.
“Your son is stable.”
Grant’s shoulders dropped so suddenly I thought his knees might go with them.
The doctor continued.
“He had transient respiratory distress, which can happen after delivery, and he’s responding well to oxygen support.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“At this point, I’m optimistic, but we’re going to monitor him closely for several hours.”
Grant nodded too many times.
“Can I see him?”
“In a few minutes.”
“What about his mother?”
“She’s stable as well.”
Grant closed his eyes briefly.
I looked away.
The doctor asked him several medical-history questions.
Grant answered what he could and admitted what he could not.
He did not pretend expertise.
That small honesty bothered me.
It reminded me how many different versions of him existed inside the same body.
When the doctor left, Grant sat in a plastic chair against the wall.
I remained standing.
He looked at the floor.
“I almost missed this.”
“Yes.”
“If you hadn’t come back—”
“Don’t.”
He looked up.
“I’m not thanking you for saving my son.”
“Good, because I didn’t.”
“You turned the plane around.”
“For him.”
“I know.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I know that distinction matters to you.”
“It should matter to you too.”
A cart squeaked past carrying folded linens.
The orderly pushing it nodded at us without recognizing anyone.
For a few seconds, the hospital resumed being only a hospital.
Then Grant said, “Your father knew about Melissa.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He did not look up.
“Not Melissa specifically.”
“Then don’t say he knew about Melissa.”
“He knew I had cheated before.”
The hallway seemed to narrow.
“When?”
“Before we were married.”
I sat down because standing suddenly required too much attention.
“With whom?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Someone from graduate school.”
“While we were together?”
“Yes.”
I felt nothing at first.
That was almost worse.
“Did my father tell you not to tell me?”
Grant shook his head.
“He told me to tell you.”
I watched him.
“And?”
“I didn’t.”
“Obviously.”
“He said if I married you without telling you, I’d spend the rest of my life afraid the truth would come out.”
A humorless smile touched Grant’s mouth.
“He was right about that part.”
I remembered my father and Grant in the den at the lake house the week before our wedding.
I had walked in with a bowl of cherries and found them sitting silently across from each other.
My father had asked me to give them ten minutes.
Grant had later said they were discussing Northstar succession planning.
At the time, I had believed him because believing him had been easier than wondering why my father looked disappointed.
“You lied about that conversation too.”
“Yes.”
The elevator opened.
Daniel Kim stepped out carrying his laptop bag and the blue folder.
He looked from Grant to me.
“I thought you were on the plane.”
“So did I.”
Daniel glanced toward the NICU doors.
“Is the baby okay?”
“Stable,” Grant said.
Daniel nodded once.
Then his face changed.
“Evelyn asked me to come.”
“At midnight?”
“It isn’t midnight.”
Daniel checked his watch.
“Eleven twenty-six.”
He looked tired enough to resent time itself.
I stood.
“What happened?”
Daniel hesitated.
Grant noticed.
“What?”
Daniel took the folder from under his arm.
“Lena found that the Brightwell payments don’t terminate at the vendor account.”
Grant’s eyes narrowed.
“Where do they go?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Some of them move through two additional entities.”
“And then?”
“One destination is a private investment account.”
“Whose?”
Daniel did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough to make my stomach tighten.
“Daniel.”
“The account is held by the Hale Family Irrevocable Trust.”
Grant stood.
“No.”
Daniel opened the folder.
“I have the routing records.”
“That trust is Claire’s.”
“I know.”
I looked at Grant.
May you like
He looked genuinely shocked.
It was the first reaction all night that I could not fit into any theory I had already formed.
