Chương 9
“Yes.”
Elena opened the door.
Camille stepped into the hall, then turned.
“For what it is worth, I am sorry.”
“It isn’t worth anything yet.”
Camille nodded once and left.
Elena locked the door, returned to the kitchen, and sat with Noah’s email in her hand.
For months she had believed he died before telling anyone.
Now she knew he had tried.
The knowledge did not comfort her. It changed the shape of her anger, which was worse.
Adrian learned about the email at four that afternoon.
Camille handed him the original digital record in a conference room while Dana Cho watched from the far end of the table.
Adrian read it without sitting.
When he reached the final sentence, he set the tablet down with excessive care.
“How long?”
“Three days after he died.”
“You knew for seven months.”
“I knew Noah claimed someone identified as E. was pregnant.”
“You knew her surname appeared in other emails.”
“I did.”
“Did you look her up?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Camille opened her mouth, then closed it.
Adrian waited.
Finally she said, “Because if I found her, I would have to decide what to do.”
He stared at her.
“That is the ugliest answer I have,” she added. “It is also the true one.”
Dana quietly gathered her notes. “I can give you privacy.”
“No,” Camille said. “Stay.”
Adrian walked to the window.
Below, morning coverage crews still waited across the street. The hotel had become a backdrop for strangers explaining his family.
“You let me put Noah’s name on a foundation,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You designed the campaign.”
“Yes.”
“You stood beside me while I said I wished I had known how alone he was.”
Camille’s voice cracked. “I did not know where Elena was. I did not know whether she wanted contact. I did not know if the pregnancy was ongoing or whether Noah was telling the truth.”
“You knew enough to ask.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That there would be a child. That you would turn guilt into a life plan. That every decision we made would begin with what Noah needed, even after he was gone.”
Adrian turned.
Camille pressed her lips together before continuing. “I was afraid you would leave me for a dead man’s emergency.”
The room went still.
Dana looked down at her notes.
Adrian’s anger shifted, not smaller but less simple.
Camille touched the ring on her finger. “I spent two years building a future around someone who was always listening for his brother’s next crisis. After Noah died, I thought the listening might stop. That is horrible. I know.”
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“You should have found Elena.”
“Yes.”
“You should not have decided what her silence meant.”
“No.”
He looked at the tablet again.
I need my brother, not the company.
“What happens now?” Camille asked.
It was not a communications question.
Adrian sat across from her.
“I don’t know.”
Camille removed the ring.
She did not slide it dramatically across the table. She held it in her palm for a while, studying the indentation it had left on her skin.
“We don’t have to decide everything today,” Adrian said.
“You have not looked at me as your fiancée since the lobby.”
“I don’t know how to look at you.”
“That is a decision.”
She placed the ring beside the tablet.
Adrian did not reach for it.
Camille stood. “The investigation will find more. Martin has been asking department heads to recreate missing records. Dana stopped him.”
“Will you cooperate?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it exposes your decisions?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her laugh was quiet and tired. “You have finally asked a question I cannot turn into strategy.”
Then she left.
The hospital scheduled Elena for additional monitoring on Friday.
She went alone.
Reina had offered to come, but her grandson had a school assembly, and Elena refused to let a room full of six-year-olds perform without at least one adult paying attention.
The clinic waiting room contained six chairs, a water dispenser, and a television showing a home renovation program with captions. Elena sat beneath a framed photograph of a lake and completed the same family-history form she had completed twice before.
Paternal grandfather: sudden cardiac death, age forty-eight.
Paternal father: fainting episodes, possible rhythm abnormality, deceased age thirty.
Paternal uncle: testing pending.
She paused over the relationship field.
The form offered father, partner, spouse, donor, unknown, and other.
She marked other.
Adrian arrived seven minutes later carrying a folder and two coffees.
“I didn’t ask you to come.”
“The clinic did.”
“They asked for records.”
“They asked whether I could provide a sample today.”
He placed the folder on the chair between them.
Elena eyed the coffees. “What are those?”
“One is decaf.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I thought you might want one.”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“You used to.”
“I used to sleep four hours and smoke on fire escapes.”
Adrian threw both coffees away.
Elena watched him return. “You could have kept yours.”
“It was bad.”
“You didn’t taste it.”
“I know this place.”
Despite herself, she almost smiled.
He sat two chairs away.
For several minutes they watched a contractor on television reveal a kitchen island to a couple who reacted as though countertops had restored their faith in one another.
Adrian tapped the edge of his folder.
“My mother released the records,” he said.
“You forced her?”
“I explained that the clinic did not need her permission to receive copies Noah could have requested while alive. Dana explained the rest.”
“So yes.”
“Yes.”
Elena adjusted the strap of her bag. “Camille came to my apartment.”
“I know.”
“She showed me the email.”
“I know.”
The repetition sounded absurd.
Adrian looked at his hands. “I’m sorry.”
“For which part?”
He considered this. “For creating a life where people believed hiding the truth from me was a form of management.”
Elena turned toward him.
May you like
It was not the apology she expected.
He continued. “That does not excuse them. It also does not excuse me.”
