Chương 8
Vale’s professional expression faltered.
Rebecca walked away before he could recover.
In the car, Miriam opened the envelope.
Inside was a proposed confidentiality agreement. Eleanor offered to resign from the Summit board, reimburse disputed company funds, and establish a ten-million-dollar trust for Ivy in exchange for private mediation, withdrawal of civil claims against Eleanor personally, and mutual nondisparagement.
Rebecca read the first page twice.
“She had this drafted already,” she said.
“Likely before the meeting.”
“She knew the photograph was coming.”
“She knew something was coming.”
Rebecca turned to the final page. Eleanor’s signature line was blank.
Ten million dollars.
The number created an immediate, shameful calculation. Ivy’s education. Medical care. A home beyond military housing. Freedom from dependence on Julian. Rebecca had spent years watching wealthy people pretend money was vulgar while using it to remove every practical fear from their children’s lives.
Miriam watched her.
“It is designed to make you feel greedy for considering it and reckless for refusing it,” she said.
“I know.”
“That does not mean the trust has no value.”
“I know.”
“You can negotiate without surrendering the claims.”
Rebecca folded the agreement and placed it back in the envelope.
“What would you do?”
“I am not Ivy’s mother.”
“That is why I’m asking.”
Miriam looked out the window. “I would not sign today.”
“Neither would I.”
“But you considered it.”
“Yes.”
“Good. People who do not consider ten million dollars are either dishonest or already rich.”
Rebecca rested her head against the seat.
Her phone displayed three missed calls from an unknown number and one text from Julian.
I will follow every boundary you set. I am at the testing center tomorrow at nine. I am sorry I did not look harder.
She read it again.
Not I’m sorry I didn’t know.
I’m sorry I did not look harder.
That distinction hurt.
“Do I answer?” she asked.
Miriam held out her hand for the phone. “Not as your lawyer.”
“As a person.”
Miriam gave it back. “Then answer as a person.”
Rebecca typed three responses and deleted them.
At last she wrote: Nine o’clock. Do not bring your mother or staff.
The reply came almost immediately.
I’ll come alone.
The paternity testing facility occupied a quiet office suite above a dental practice in Oak Brook. Rebecca arrived early, wearing civilian clothes for the first time in days: dark jeans, a blue sweater, hair pulled into a loose knot. Ivy slept in a car seat beside her.
Julian entered at exactly nine.
He had no assistant, driver, or attorney with him. He wore a charcoal sweater beneath a plain coat, and for one disorienting second Rebecca saw the man who used to make pancakes badly on Sundays and complain that spatulas were designed by cowards.
Then he noticed Ivy.
He stopped near the reception desk.
“Hi,” he said.
Rebecca had expected apologies. The single awkward word unsettled her more.
“Hello.”
The receptionist called them to a private room. A technician explained the cheek swab procedure, identity verification, chain of custody, and expected turnaround. Julian listened too carefully, as though good behavior in this room might repair his absence from the delivery room.
When the technician swabbed Ivy’s mouth, the baby woke and began to protest.
Julian leaned forward instinctively, then caught himself.
Rebecca lifted Ivy from the seat.
“It’s all right,” she murmured. “You’ve survived worse paperwork.”
Julian gave a brief, surprised laugh.
The sound reminded Rebecca of their first year together, before wealth and duty became opposing countries. She had met him at a hospital fundraiser in Norfolk after he spilled red wine on a rear admiral’s wife. Rebecca had helped blot the stain while Julian apologized so earnestly that the admiral’s wife began comforting him. Later, he admitted he had attended the event only because Eleanor threatened to seat him beside a senator if he refused.
That Julian had been easy to love because he seemed embarrassed by the world built for him.
The technician finished and left.
They remained in the room with Ivy between them.
“She has your mouth,” Julian said.
Rebecca looked down. “She has my father’s mouth.”
“I never met him.”
“No.”
“You never showed me many pictures.”
“I didn’t have many.”
The conversation collapsed.
Julian sat with his hands clasped. “May I ask something?”
“You can ask.”
“Were you alone when she was born?”
Rebecca’s body remembered before her mind did: the pressure, the white ceiling, the nurse telling her to breathe, the empty chair beside the bed where a support person should have been.
“Miriam arrived after surgery.”
“Before that?”
“A nurse named Carla stayed when her shift ended.”
Julian looked down.
“I should have been there.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Neither do I.”
He nodded as if she had given him an instruction.
Ivy opened her eyes. Pale blue, alert for a moment. Julian leaned closer without moving his chair.
“Can I hold her?”
Rebecca’s first instinct was no.
It came from somewhere deeper than anger. For three months, she had been the person who knew how Ivy liked to be held, which cry meant hunger, how to angle the bottle to reduce gas, which side of the carrier rubbed her cheek. Julian’s hands looked too large and too unfamiliar. The thought of placing Ivy in them felt like surrendering proof that Rebecca had survived without him.
Then Ivy turned toward his voice.
Rebecca stood.
“Support her head.”
“I know.”
“You have never held a three-month-old.”
“I watched the hospital training video twice last night.”
Despite herself, she almost smiled.
She placed Ivy in his arms.
Julian’s confidence disappeared. He held the baby with rigid concentration, one palm beneath her head, the other supporting her body. Ivy stared at him.
“Hi,” he said again.
Rebecca looked away.
May you like
On the wall hung a framed print of a sailboat in an impossible blue sea. Someone in the dental office below started a drill. Normal life continued with offensive ease.
Ivy reached up and touched Julian’s chin.
