Chương 6
“A tax matter, I believe.”
“You believe?”
Martin’s defensiveness arrived as courtesy. “Adrian, this is a large organization. I cannot personally know the status of every vendor.”
“You knew enough to clear them.”
“We found no systemic issue at the time.”
Dana looked at Martin. “No documents are to be altered, deleted, transferred, or destroyed.”
“Of course not.”
Adrian leaned over the table.
“Reinstate Elena. Pay her for tonight. Remove attendance points connected to documented prenatal care, and review whether anyone else was penalized for medical absences.”
Martin’s lips thinned. “Changing records before an investigation could itself be improper.”
“Then freeze them and pay her while you investigate.”
“That creates the appearance of preferential treatment.”
“She was sent home because of preferential treatment. Just in the wrong direction.”
Martin looked toward the general manager, but the man found something interesting in the carpet.
Adrian straightened. “You have until noon tomorrow to provide a written account of what you reviewed after Noah’s emails.”
“Are you accusing me of misconduct?”
“I’m asking what you did.”
“That is not how this feels.”
Adrian gathered the pages.
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
At one in the morning, Elena stood in her bathroom brushing her teeth while Reina slept on the sofa despite having been told to go home.
The baby moved with slow, deliberate pressure beneath Elena’s ribs. She rested one hand against the spot.
“You are not allowed to inherit everybody’s worst habits,” she murmured around the toothbrush.
The baby moved again.
Elena rinsed her mouth and stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair had loosened from its bun. A faint line from the hotel collar crossed the base of her throat. Her face looked older than it had that morning.
She opened the medicine cabinet and took out a photograph she had hidden behind a bottle of prenatal vitamins.
Noah sat on the floor of her apartment with a screwdriver between his teeth, repairing a kitchen drawer. His hair was too long. One sock had a hole in the heel. He was looking away from the camera because he had not known she was taking the picture.
She had loved him most in moments when he was not asking to be loved.
That had not made loving him safe.
Noah could be generous with money he did not have and cruel when ashamed. He disappeared for hours rather than admit he was frightened. During the final months of his life, he attended recovery meetings, worked temporary maintenance jobs, and made plans with a seriousness that felt almost superstitious. He had written appointments on Elena’s refrigerator in blue marker.
Tuesday: meeting.
Thursday: call Adrian.
Friday: fix bathroom fan.
He completed two.
Elena returned the photograph to the medicine cabinet.
In the living room, Reina snored once, then muttered in Spanish at someone in a dream.
Elena turned off the light.
The next morning, Adrian drove to his mother’s house without calling.
Vivienne Voss lived in the same limestone residence where Adrian and Noah had grown up, though she had renovated every room except the downstairs library. She said the paneling there was historic. Noah used to say it was haunted by men who hated comfortable furniture.
Vivienne met Adrian in the breakfast room wearing a cream sweater and pearl earrings. A newspaper lay folded beside her coffee, its front page turned down.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“I need Dad’s medical records.”
She lifted her cup. “Good morning to you.”
“Did he have a heart condition?”
“He died of a heart attack.”
“That’s an event, not a diagnosis.”
Vivienne put down the cup.
“Why?”
Adrian told her about the hospital request without mentioning the video. She had already seen it, but he wanted to know whether she would admit that.
She walked to the window.
The garden crew was blowing leaves from a terrace that would be covered again within an hour.
“Noah was not careful,” she said.
“This is not about careful.”
“It may be.”
“The doctor suspects an inherited rhythm problem.”
Vivienne’s shoulders drew back. “From whose side?”
“Ours.”
“Or Elena Marlow’s.”
“You know her name.”
“It is everywhere.”
“She says the baby is Noah’s.”
“She says.”
Adrian turned away from her.
Vivienne noticed. “I am not calling her a liar. I am saying grief makes certainty attractive.”
“She is not asking for money.”
“Not yet.”
“Stop.”
“You came here for records seven months after your brother died, and you expect me not to understand risk?”
“I expect you to understand he may have a daughter.”
Vivienne’s face tightened around the word.
Adrian continued. “Did Dad have tests?”
“He saw doctors.”
“For what?”
“Palpitations. Fainting once. They gave him medication he disliked.”
“What medication?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Where are the records?”
“Probably storage.”
“You kept everything.”
“That does not mean I cataloged his prescriptions.”
“Did Noah know?”
Vivienne looked down at the folded newspaper. “He knew your father fainted.”
“Did he ask about it?”
“Once, after he collapsed at school.”
“And?”
“The pediatric cardiologist said Noah’s heart looked normal.”
“Did they recommend follow-up?”
She did not answer.
“Mom.”
“He was supposed to wear a monitor. He refused after two days because boys teased him.”
“And that was it?”
“Your father said not to make him anxious.”
Adrian stared at her.
Vivienne’s voice sharpened. “We did what doctors told us then.”
“Did they tell you to ignore it?”
“Do not come into my home and rewrite your childhood as neglect.”
“I’m trying to answer a medical form.”
“No, you are punishing me because you saw a pregnant woman and found a new version of your brother to save.”
The accuracy of it struck him hard enough that he stepped back.
Vivienne saw that too.
Her expression softened, though not into apology. “Adrian, Noah could make you feel guilty for surviving a day more easily than he did.”
“He never told me about Elena.”
“Perhaps he knew you would interfere.”
“I would have helped.”
May you like
“You would have taken over.”
He looked toward the library door.
