Chương 10
A taxi stopped at the curb.
A doorman opened an umbrella for a woman in a silver dress.
I watched her hurry beneath it.
Rain again.
Always rain.
“My mother died believing I hated her.”
Conrad spoke behind me.
“No.”
I turned.
“What?”
“She knew you didn’t.”
“How could she know that?”
He hesitated.
Then he reached inside his jacket.
For one irrational second, I expected another document.
Instead, he removed his phone.
He opened something, searched, then held it toward me.
On the screen was a photograph.
My mother lay in a hospital bed.
She looked smaller than I remembered.
Gray hair.
Thin hands.
A blanket tucked to her chest.
Beside her pillow rested a printed photograph of me in uniform.
Not a family photograph.
An official one.
I knew exactly when it had been taken.
Four years earlier.
My promotion ceremony.
I stared at the screen.
“Where did she get that?”
Conrad lowered the phone.
“She followed your career.”
My throat closed.
“How?”
“The internet, eventually.”
“You told me she could not find me.”
“She could not contact you.”
“That is different.”
“Yes.”
Damian looked at our father.
“You knew she was doing that?”
“For years.”
“And you never told Elise?”
“There was no communication with Elise.”
“You could have started some.”
Conrad looked at me.
“I nearly did.”
I said nothing.
“After your mother got sick.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
I felt the floor shift beneath the dates.
My promotion.
The photograph.
Her illness.
“Did she ask you to?”
“Every week.”
The anger returned so fast I had to unclench my teeth.
“And?”
“I told her I would.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
My father looked at the photograph still glowing on his phone.
His answer came slowly.
“Because by then I no longer knew how to speak to you without admitting that your mother had been right.”
Damian stared at him.
I did too.
It was the first sentence Conrad Voss had spoken all night that sounded like confession instead of argument.
It changed nothing.
That was important.
Truth did not erase consequence simply because it arrived late.
I walked back to the coffee table and picked up the envelope.
“Tomorrow morning, I want to see the originals.”
My father looked up.
“Why?”
“Because I need to know what is actually there.”
“For what purpose?”
“I have not decided.”
His shoulders tightened.
“You are considering legal action.”
“I said I have not decided.”
“Against your own family.”
I looked at him.
“You should probably stop using that phrase as a shield.”
Damian stood.
“I’ll take you to the house.”
Conrad turned.
“No.”
Damian looked almost amused.
“You really still think that works.”
“It is my property.”
Julian’s voice came from the doorway.
“Not all of it.”
We turned.
He and Mara had returned.
Mara held two untouched glasses of champagne.
Julian held a ring of old brass keys.
“My grandmother left me the desk,” he said.
“And the room it is in.”
Conrad looked at the keys in Julian’s hand as though they were a personal insult.
“What do you mean the room?”
Julian stepped fully into the suite.
“The west study.”
My father’s expression changed.
“That was not hers to give.”
“It was in the trust.”
“No.”
Damian looked at him.
“Yes.”
Conrad turned.
“You knew?”
“I knew Mom changed the estate plan.”
“You knew she gave Julian part of the house?”
“She gave him one room and the contents.”
“That is not how property works.”
“It is when an attorney writes it that way.”
My father stared at Damian for several seconds.
“Which attorney?”
Damian’s mouth tightened.
“Not yours.”
That answer irritated Conrad more than almost anything else said that night.
I could see it.
The idea that my mother had consulted counsel outside his orbit offended some deeper assumption about how the family was supposed to function.
Julian jingled the keys once.
“It transferred after probate.”
“You never told me.”
“You never asked why I was renovating the west wing.”
“I assumed you were storing things.”
“I was.”
Mara handed one champagne glass to Julian.
He took it automatically.
She kept the other.
“Your guests are beginning to notice the groom keeps disappearing.”
Julian looked at her.
“Did my mother ask?”
“No.”
“My aunt Celia?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you had indigestion.”
Julian stared at her.
“Really?”
“It was the least interesting lie I could think of.”
Damian laughed.
Mara sipped her champagne.
“She immediately recommended peppermint tea.”
“That sounds like Aunt Celia.”
Conrad stood.
“We are going downstairs.”
Julian nodded.
“Good.”
“And tomorrow, no one enters that room.”
Julian blinked.
“Also good joke.”
“I am serious.”
“So am I.”
My father looked at Damian.
“Handle this.”
Damian’s face went blank.
For one second, I saw the old pattern return.
Conrad issued a command.
Damian absorbed it.
The family reorganized itself around the easiest route to avoiding conflict.
Then Damian rubbed his mouth with one hand.
“No.”
Conrad stared at him.
“No?”
“No.”
“You are allowing your son to raid private records.”
“My son owns the records in that room.”
“You do not know that.”
“Neither do you.”
Conrad’s voice dropped.
“You are making a mistake.”
Damian looked at me.
Then back at him.
“Probably.”
He gave a tired shrug.
“I’ve made plenty.”
My father’s eyes hardened.
“You think siding with her fixes anything?”
There it was.
Not justice.
Sides.
Not truth.
Allegiance.
Damian flinched anyway.
I hated that I noticed.
He was fifty-three years old and still reacting to our father like a boy who had failed an exam.
“I’m not siding with Elise.”
He spoke more firmly.
“I’m refusing to keep pretending documents don’t exist because you dislike them.”
Conrad stepped closer.
“You have no idea what is in that room.”
“Apparently neither do you.”
My father’s silence lasted half a beat too long.
I felt it.
So did Julian.
“You do know,” I said.
Conrad turned to me.
“Some of it.”
May you like
“How much?”
“Your mother kept records.”
