Chương 2
On the far side of the Christmas tree, a photographer stood beside his equipment with one hand resting on a camera he no longer appeared willing to touch. Tape marks on the floor showed where everyone had been placed. Nathan in the center. Brooke beside him. Charles and Vivian seated. An open space near the edge where Lily was supposed to stand alone.
There had been no mark for Emma.
Nathan followed her gaze.
“It was a donor photograph.”
“With your parents?”
“They were hosting.”
“And Lily?”
“She’s their granddaughter.”
Emma looked at Brooke. “What were you?”
Brooke lifted her chin. “Working.”
A few guests looked away.
Lily tugged Emma’s sleeve. “Mommy, my toes hurt.”
The anger inside Emma changed shape.
She put the phone into her coat pocket, crouched, and unzipped Lily’s boots. Melted snow had darkened the silver leather. Lily’s socks were wet. Emma pulled off her own scarf, wrapped it around the child’s feet, and lifted her.
For several seconds, nobody spoke. The adults who had gathered to witness a confrontation were forced to watch a mother carry a cold child into a house her company owned and her husband had barred her from entering.
Charles stepped aside.
Not for Emma, she thought.
For the audience.
The warmth in the foyer made Lily shiver harder. Vivian moved toward her, but Emma turned slightly, enough to prevent the embrace without making a scene.
“I can get towels,” Vivian said.
“I know where they are.”
Emma carried Lily into a powder room off the foyer. The room smelled of pine soap and the expensive candles Vivian ordered each December. Emma sat Lily on the marble counter, peeled off the wet socks, and rubbed the child’s feet between her palms.
“Are the investigators going to take Daddy to jail?” Lily asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” Emma said after a pause. “But not tonight.”
Lily watched her face. “Grandma said you were busy.”
“I was.”
“She said that was why Brooke had to be in the picture.”
Emma folded the wet socks and placed them beside the sink, although there was no reason to fold them.
“What did Daddy say?”
“He said not to ask grown-up questions during the party.”
“That wasn’t fair.”
Lily’s mouth trembled. “I asked if you were coming. He said you always make everything about work.”
Emma closed her eyes for one breath. Nathan had accused her of that for years, often while asking her to solve problems his family could not afford. She opened the cabinet, found two hand towels, and wrapped them around Lily’s feet.
“Tonight is not your fault,” she said.
“Is it yours?”
Children did not soften the questions adults spent entire marriages avoiding.
“Some of it may be.”
Lily considered this with grave attention. “Which part?”
“I trusted people after I knew I should check.”
“That sounds like their fault.”
“It can be both.”
From the foyer came the sound of Hale reading the preservation order. Charles interrupted twice. Nathan’s attorney was apparently on speakerphone, objecting from a ski lodge in Vermont. Someone dropped a glass. Vivian apologized to the guests as though the broken stemware were the evening’s central problem.
Emma buttoned Lily’s coat again.
“You’re going home with Aunt Maya,” she said.
“I want to stay with you.”
“I need to talk to people.”
“You always need to talk to people.”
The sentence was not cruel. That made it hurt more.
Emma pressed her forehead briefly to Lily’s hat. “I know.”
Maya Chen arrived twelve minutes later in jeans, a camel coat, and running shoes, having driven from a neighborhood Christmas dinner without changing. She was Reed Meridian’s chief operating officer, Emma’s oldest friend at the company, and the person who had cast the first vote to suspend Nathan.
She was also the person who had cast the second vote to place Emma on temporary leave.
Maya took in the wet shoes, the investigators, the stunned guests, and Brooke’s evening gown.
“I left a perfectly good dumpling soup for this,” she said.
Lily gave a weak laugh.
Maya crouched. “Your mom told me you need a rescue car.”
“Is it a real rescue?”
“It has heated seats and three kinds of crackers.”
“Four,” Emma said. “There are cheese ones in the console.”
Maya looked up. “You still keep emergency crackers in a company car?”
“They have survived three leases.”
“Then they’re probably evidence.”
Lily smiled despite herself.
Emma helped her into Maya’s coat for the walk outside. Before leaving, Lily looked toward the Christmas tree. The photographer had begun packing his equipment. Brooke stood alone near the velvet bench while Nathan argued with Hale in the library doorway.
“Can I take my ornament?” Lily asked.
Each year, Vivian placed a new ornament on the tree for her granddaughter. This year’s was a small silver house with LILY engraved over the door.
Emma did not want anything from the tree. She wanted to carry Lily past it without looking, let the investigators seal the rooms, and never again stand beneath portraits of dead Reeds.
But Lily was waiting.
“Show me which one.”
They crossed the foyer together. Guests opened a path. Lily pointed to the silver house, hanging too high for her to reach. Emma lifted her, and Lily removed it carefully from the branch.
Vivian watched from beside the stairs.
“That was made for this house,” she said.
Lily held the ornament against her coat. “It has my name.”
Vivian’s face folded for an instant, then recovered.
“Yes,” she said. “It does.”
Maya took Lily outside.
May you like
Emma stood at the door until the car lights disappeared beyond the stone gate. Then she turned back toward the house.
Most of the guests had left. Some departed through the kitchen to avoid passing her. Others paused long enough to touch Vivian’s arm or whisper that they would call. One man who had invested in Reed Meridian’s first institutional fund walked straight past Nathan and asked Emma whether his capital was safe.
