Chương 4
“We are talking.”
“No, you’re answering questions like a witness.”
I set down the knife.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to know what happened.”
The question surprised me enough that I almost smiled.
“What happened?”
“To you.”
I wiped my hands on a dish towel.
“You happened.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the shortest one.”
He walked to the counter, stopped, then backed away as if proximity had become dangerous.
“I know I screwed up.”
“You had an affair.”
“Yes.”
“You brought her to our son’s birthday.”
“I know.”
“You let her sit beside you.”
“I know.”
“You watched me see it.”
He looked down.
That was new.
“Why?” I asked.
His face tightened.
“Why what?”
“Why did you keep watching me?”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
“Maybe I wanted you to react.”
“I did react.”
“Not lately.”
I waited.
His eyes met mine.
“You stopped fighting.”
“I stopped competing.”
“I never asked you to compete.”
“You brought the competition to dinner.”
He flinched.
It was small, but real.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
The refrigerator motor clicked on.
A pot of water began to tremble on the stove.
Adrian sat down.
“I thought you didn’t care.”
“No.”
“I thought maybe you were done with me before Vanessa.”
“That would make this easier for you.”
“I’m telling you what I thought.”
“And I’m telling you what it sounds like.”
He looked toward the window.
“Maybe both can be true.”
That was the first honest thing he had said in a long time.
I turned off the burner beneath the pot.
The water had started boiling over.
For several seconds I concentrated on wiping the stove.
When I looked back, Adrian had taken off his wedding ring.
He was turning it between his fingers.
“Are you leaving?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“This is your house too.”
“I know.”
“Then why should you leave?”
“Because I don’t want to sleep in the room where I spent six months wondering whether you were coming home.”
His face changed.
“Where will you go?”
“My mother has an apartment downtown she barely uses.”
He gave a quiet, bitter laugh.
“Of course she does.”
I stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
He pushed the ring across the table and caught it before it reached the edge.
“It means your family always has an exit.”
The words sat between us.
I thought of my father signing checks when Adrian could barely cover payroll.
I thought of the apartment my mother had kept after he died because she said the suburbs had become too quiet.
I thought of every time Adrian had accepted help and resented the existence of the person who gave it.
“That’s not my fault,” I said.
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You implied it.”
“Your father never trusted me.”
“He invested eight hundred thousand dollars in you.”
“He invested with protections that made sure I never forgot whose money built the first floor.”
I leaned against the counter.
“So this is about my father?”
“No.”
“It sounds like it.”
“It’s about always feeling like there was a part of you I could never reach because you knew, if everything burned down, you would still land somewhere soft.”
I stared at him.
There was cruelty in the sentence, but there was something else too.
Envy, maybe.
Shame.
A grievance he had carried so long it had changed shape.
“Is that how you justified Vanessa?”
“I’m not justifying her.”
“You’re doing a remarkable imitation.”
He stood abruptly.
“I said I screwed up.”
“You keep saying that as though you forgot an anniversary.”
“What do you want me to call it?”
“What it was.”
He looked at me.
I waited.
Finally he said, “I wanted to feel wanted.”
The simplicity of it was almost disappointing.
“You were wanted.”
“By you?”
“Yes.”
“You stopped looking at me years ago.”
My anger arrived so quickly I had to grip the counter.
“You were working eighty-hour weeks.”
“I was building something.”
“So was I.”
He frowned.
“This family.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Claire—”
“I stayed home when Noah had pneumonia because you were in Boston.”
“I know.”
“I handled Sophie’s panic attacks senior year while you were trying to close Brightwell.”
“I know.”
“I sat through dinners alone because your flight changed, your meeting ran late, your investors needed something, your portfolio companies were on fire.”
“I never asked you to give up your life.”
“That’s the problem.”
He stopped.
I heard my own breathing.
The room smelled like onion and overheated water.
I wanted to say something devastating.
For a few seconds, I wanted the satisfaction of watching him hurt.
Instead I picked up the knife and moved it into the sink.
“I’m done having this conversation tonight.”
He laughed under his breath.
“That’s convenient.”
“I’m trying not to say things I’ll regret.”
“You think I haven’t heard worse?”
“Not from me.”
He looked at me for a long time.
Then he took his jacket and left.
He did not come home that night.
At eight the following morning, Martin called.
Unlike Adrian, he began with hello.
“Claire, I need to ask you something, and I need an honest answer.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Are you trying to force Adrian out of the company?”
“No.”
Martin was quiet.
“Does Margaret know that?”
“Yes.”
“And your trust counsel?”
“Yes.”
“Then what exactly do you want?”
“The truth.”
He sighed.
“That sounds simple when you’re not sitting where I’m sitting.”
“Where are you sitting?”
“In a conference room with three directors who are terrified that anything involving Adrian’s personal life is going to become a governance issue.”
“It may already be one.”
“I know.”
His voice dropped.
“That’s why I called.”
I sat at the breakfast table.
The untouched coffee in front of me had gone cold.
“What happened?”
May you like
“We found another invoice.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
