Chương 9
“Did the transfer protect him legally?”
“It made him more valuable.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No. It’s worse.”
Madeline looked toward the door.
Her father’s voice softened.
“I did wrong things.”
She turned back.
He rarely said wrong.
Never like that.
Richard stared at his hands.
“I told myself they were temporary. I told myself I was moving money, not stealing it. I told myself everyone would be repaid after two investments cleared. Then one failed. Then I needed another structure to cover the first.”
Madeline sat slowly.
Richard continued.
“The lies become administrative after a while.”
She said nothing.
“You stop waking up thinking, I committed fraud yesterday. You wake up thinking, I need Charles to move the Wednesday call and I should have the car serviced.”
His mouth twisted.
“That’s the frightening part.”
Madeline thought of him helping assemble a crib two weeks earlier.
He had complained about Swedish instructions.
He had ordered pizza.
At some point his phone must have contained messages from attorneys, accountants, perhaps frightened employees.
He had still remembered Madeline liked mushrooms and Ethan did not.
Human beings did not become monsters and stop being fathers.
That would have been easier.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
Richard looked up.
“Nothing.”
“Dad.”
He closed his eyes.
There it was.
The title came naturally.
Not Richard.
Dad.
She hated that too.
“I want you to believe I never intended to hurt you.”
Madeline looked at him for a long time.
“I do believe that.”
Relief moved across his face.
Then she said, “That doesn’t help.”
He looked older than sixty-four.
“When did Mom find out?”
Richard went still.
Madeline’s heartbeat changed.
“Find out what?”
“That is the worst lie you’ve told today.”
“Maddie.”
“She knew, didn’t she?”
He stared at the table.
“How much?”
“She knew I used aggressive structures.”
“Illegal ones?”
“She suspected.”
“Did you fight about it?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Near the end.”
Her mother had died of pancreatic cancer seventeen months after diagnosis.
Near the end could mean anything.
“Did she know about Hartwell?”
“No. That came later.”
“Did she know you were moving money through family trusts?”
Richard did not answer.
Madeline felt nausea rise.
“The original infant trust.”
Her father’s eyes filled.
Not dramatically.
No tear fell.
But she saw it.
“She created it,” Richard said.
Madeline stopped breathing.
“What?”
“She asked the estate attorney to draft it.”
“For my future child.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t I know?”
“She wanted to tell you when you had children.”
“She died.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept it.”
“I kept everything.”
Richard looked toward his wedding ring.
“She was terrified near the end that you would think every decision she made was because she was dying. She wanted something that belonged to a future she wasn’t going to see.”
Madeline turned away.
For several seconds, she could not speak.
She pictured her mother.
Not dying.
That was how grief tricked people after enough years. The final months became greedy. They tried to consume everything that came before.
Madeline forced herself to remember her mother alive.
Burning toast.
Swearing at parking meters.
Refusing to replace a ten-year-old bathrobe because “nothing else has the right pockets.”
Laughing so hard at a terrible movie that she spilled wine on the dog.
Planning for a grandchild she would never meet.
Madeline pressed a hand over her mouth.
Richard did not approach.
Good.
If he had touched her, she might have screamed.
“What did you do to her trust?”
His voice broke slightly.
“I used it.”
“For your crimes.”
“Yes.”
The word was almost inaudible.
Madeline nodded.
That was the moment something ended between them.
Not love.
Love was apparently harder to kill than she had once believed.
But authority.
Her father’s authority over the shape of reality.
Gone.
She picked up her bag.
Richard remained seated.
At the door, she looked back.
“Did Ethan know Mom created it?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Madeline believed him.
Not because he was her father.
Because his answer had no hesitation.
She left.
In the elevator, her first real contraction began.
It felt nothing like the others.
Dr. Shah had been right.
Madeline stopped wondering.
She leaned against the elevator wall and pressed the button for the lobby repeatedly, as if that could make the building descend faster.
Another contraction came eight minutes later in the car.
Then another seven minutes after that.
Samantha was forty minutes away.
Diane was two hours away.
Ethan was twelve minutes away.
Madeline stared at his name on her phone.
She hated every option.
Then the pain intensified.
She called him.
He answered before the first ring had fully finished.
“Madeline?”
“I think I’m in labor.”
Silence.
Then his voice changed completely.
“Where are you?”
“In a car.”
“Whose car?”
“I have a driver.”
“Where?”
She told him.
“How far apart?”
“Seven minutes.”
“Water broken?”
“No.”
“Did you call Shah?”
“Not yet.”
“Call her now. I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
Madeline closed her eyes.
“Ethan.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know if I want you there.”
A pause.
“Okay.”
That answer hurt more than pressure would have.
“I mean—”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Probably not.”
The contraction eased.
Madeline breathed.
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“You won’t be.”
“But I don’t forgive you.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Sorry.”
She almost laughed.
“Meet me there.”
“I will.”
He arrived six minutes after she did.
He did not come into the room until a nurse asked Madeline whether she wanted him.
She said yes.
Then changed her mind.
Then changed it again.
The nurse, who introduced herself as Tasha and seemed unimpressed by indecisive wealthy women with complicated marriages, said, “I’m going to put him in the hall until you decide. He has legs. He’ll survive.”
Madeline liked Tasha too.
Apparently crisis improved her judgment of strangers.
Ethan stood in the hallway wearing jeans and a blue button-down shirt that had been fastened incorrectly.
Madeline stared at the mismatched buttons.
May you like
“You dressed fast.”
He looked down.
