Chương 8
“I would not answer that.”
“My mother would.”
“I’m not your mother.”
From the other side of the room, Catherine said, “That is becoming increasingly clear.”
Nina ignored her.
Sienna placed the proposal on the coffee table.
“I need time.”
“You have until tomorrow at noon.”
“Of course I do.”
After Nina left, Catherine made soup. She chopped carrots too hard and left half of one rolling on the floor. Sienna picked it up and dropped it into the trash.
Neither mentioned the settlement until they were seated at the kitchen table.
“You could take it,” Catherine said.
Sienna looked at her. “That’s not what you believe.”
“It might be what you need.”
“What I need or what you’re afraid I’ll choose?”
Catherine stirred her soup. “Both can be true.”
The answer unsettled Sienna more than pressure would have.
“I don’t have money,” Sienna said. “Not really. The accounts are joint, but Garrick controls them. My work barely paid for supplies when I stopped taking clients. If this goes on for months—”
“It will.”
“I know.”
“You can stay here.”
“That is not the same as having a life.”
“No.”
Catherine’s spoon touched the bowl.
Sienna looked at her mother’s hands. They had seemed unbreakable when she was young. Now the knuckles were larger, the skin thinner. Catherine had spent years alone in the house because work had taken most of her marriage and death had taken the rest.
“I used to judge women who stayed,” Sienna said.
Catherine did not look away.
“I would read articles and think, why doesn’t she leave? I thought there was a moment when the truth became obvious and then a door opened.”
“There is usually a door.”
“That sounds hopeful.”
“I was going to say it is usually expensive.”
Sienna laughed despite herself.
Catherine pushed the bread basket toward her. “Take the money if you decide the cost of fighting is more than you can carry. Refuse it if you decide silence would cost more. But choose based on your life, not mine.”
“Can you actually do that?”
“Probably not gracefully.”
The next morning, Sienna rejected the settlement.
At noon, an audio recording appeared online.
It captured part of an argument between Sienna and Garrick from six months earlier. Her voice was loud and ragged. She accused him of spying on her, called him pathetic, and threatened to tell the board he was “bleeding the company for his private paranoia.” Garrick’s voice remained calm. He asked whether she had taken her medication and suggested she was having another episode.
The recording ended before the sound of a slap.
Sienna listened twice, then ran to the bathroom and vomited.
She had forgotten the argument was recorded. Or perhaps she had known and forgotten that she knew. Garrick recorded meetings, calls, household disputes—anything he might need later.
Online, the reaction shifted.
Commentators described Sienna as volatile. A former Ashford employee said Garrick had endured years of emotional abuse. A television host asked whether society was too quick to believe allegations when wealthy men were involved.
Nina arrived within an hour.
“This is retaliation,” she said.
“It is also my voice.”
“Yes.”
“I sound insane.”
“You sound angry.”
“I threatened him.”
“You threatened to expose suspected corporate misconduct.”
“I called him pathetic.”
Nina sat beside her on the bathroom floor because Sienna refused to leave.
“People are allowed to be unpleasant,” Nina said. “Marriage is not a trial in which the more likable spouse earns the right not to be assaulted.”
“You didn’t hear all of it.”
“Did you hit him?”
“No.”
“Threaten to kill him?”
“No.”
“Fabricate the records?”
“No.”
“Then stop helping his attorney write the next statement.”
Sienna rested her head against the wall.
“Can we prove the recording was edited?”
“Perhaps. But even if we prove it, the full version may not flatter you.”
“It doesn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I remember what happened after.”
The slap had come when she tried to take Garrick’s phone. She had struck the kitchen counter with her hip and thrown a glass at the wall. It shattered far from him. Then she had screamed until her throat hurt.
She told Nina.
The attorney listened without softening the facts.
“We disclose that,” she said.
“To whom?”
“To investigators. Before Garrick does.”
“Won’t it make me look worse?”
“Probably.”
Sienna stared at her.
Nina shrugged. “Credibility is not the absence of ugly facts. It is what remains when the ugly facts are included.”
That afternoon, Sienna gave a supplemental statement.
She described yelling, throwing the glass, searching Garrick’s study, and sending company documents anonymously to the board. She admitted that she had lied to a private physician about the cause of her broken arm. She admitted returning to Garrick after previous incidents and defending him to friends.
Officer Bell took notes.
Fletcher was not present. Catherine waited at home.
When the interview ended, Sienna felt stripped rather than cleansed.
In the parking lot, Nina handed her a paper cup of tea from a café across the street.
“It has too much milk,” Sienna said.
“That is what they gave me.”
“I take it black.”
“You’re welcome.”
They stood beside Nina’s car while traffic moved through the intersection.
“Will they arrest him now?” Sienna asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I hate that answer.”
“It will remain popular.”
Three days later, Garrick was charged with assault based on Sienna’s statement, medical findings, the notebook, and preliminary corroboration from household records. He surrendered through counsel and was released under conditions prohibiting contact.
The charge did not bring relief.
It brought photographers to Catherine’s street.
News vans parked beside neighbors’ lawns. A man shouted questions at Sienna when she tried to retrieve the mail. Someone posted Catherine’s address online. Two windows were broken overnight by thrown stones, neither large enough to enter the house.
May you like
Catherine hired security without consulting Sienna.
The guard’s name was Luis. He was a retired transit officer who drank cinnamon coffee and spent most of his shifts doing crossword puzzles in a sedan across the street. Sienna resented him immediately.
