Chương 8
It was not elegant.
It held.
Lucy stood and tested it.
“Good.”
Ben handed her the crushed roses.
She took all three.
Then she looked at Olivia.
“Are you mad at me?”
Every adult in the room stopped.
Olivia’s face changed.
She crouched slowly despite the stiff beaded gown.
“No.”
Lucy studied her.
“You threw my flowers.”
“I know.”
“You were mad.”
Olivia swallowed.
“I was.”
“Why?”
Olivia looked at Ben.
He did not help her.
She turned back to Lucy.
“Because I was scared.”
Lucy frowned.
“Of flowers?”
A sound escaped Tessa.
Olivia closed her eyes.
“No.”
“Of Mr. Ben?”
“No.”
“Mommy?”
“No.”
Lucy waited.
Olivia seemed to understand that four-year-olds could outlast lawyers.
“Of something you had.”
“The star?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Olivia looked exhausted.
“Because I did something bad.”
Lucy considered that.
“Mommy says you say sorry.”
Tessa covered her mouth.
Olivia’s eyes filled again.
She looked at the child for a long time.
“I’m sorry.”
Lucy nodded.
Then she held out one crushed rose.
Olivia stared at it.
Lucy said, “You can have one.”
Olivia took the flower.
“Thank you.”
The gesture was so simple that Ben had to look away.
He did not forgive Olivia.
It made him furious that his mind even reached for the word.
But he watched her hold the damaged rose in both hands, and for the first time that morning he understood something uncomfortable.
There would be no satisfying moment when she stopped being human.
No clean transformation into the villain his anger wanted.
She would remain the woman he had loved while also being the woman who had denied him his final days with his mother.
Both things would have to fit inside the same body.
That was going to make hating her much less useful.
Ben left the hotel through the service entrance.
He could not face the lobby.
Unfortunately, someone had already posted photographs.
By the time he reached his car, his phone showed thirty-eight unread messages.
His business partner had written only:
You alive?
Ben answered:
Technically.
A second later:
Want me to come?
Ben stared at the question.
Normally he would have said no.
His mother used to accuse him of treating help like an invoice.
He typed:
Not yet. I’ll call.
Then he turned the phone off.
Margaret’s apartment was in Society Hill, nine blocks from the hotel.
Ben drove there anyway because walking through downtown Philadelphia in a tuxedo felt likely to generate more photographs, and apparently his appetite for public spectacle had limits.
He sat at three red lights without remembering any of them.
At the fourth, a man in a delivery van beside him was eating french fries.
Ben watched him dip each fry carefully in ketchup before eating it.
The ordinary concentration made Ben furious for no reason.
The world had no manners.
People still ate lunch.
Buses still stopped.
A woman pushed a stroller across Walnut Street while speaking into wireless earbuds.
Someone honked at Ben when the light changed.
He raised a hand in apology and drove.
Margaret’s doorman, Luis, stared when Ben entered wearing a tuxedo without a bride.
“Mr. Hale.”
“Hi, Luis.”
Luis looked toward the doors as if Olivia might appear.
She did not.
“Everything okay?”
“No.”
Luis nodded slowly.
“Your mother used to say that was an underrated answer.”
Ben stopped.
“What?”
“When people asked how she was doing.”
Luis smiled faintly.
“She’d say, ‘No, but thank you for the efficient question.’”
Ben laughed once.
Then the laugh turned into something else.
He put a hand over his mouth.
Luis looked down at the desk.
He did not pretend not to notice.
He also did not come around and hug Ben, which Ben appreciated more than he could explain.
After a moment, Luis slid the visitor logbook aside.
“You want the elevator?”
Ben nodded.
The apartment still smelled faintly like his mother.
Not perfume.
Margaret had disliked perfume.
Lemon furniture polish, old books, and the lavender hand cream she kept beside every sink.
Ben stood inside the entryway for a full minute without turning on the lights.
Seven months earlier, he had come here with the estate attorney and walked room to room signing forms.
He had not returned.
Olivia had offered repeatedly to handle the furniture.
He had called that thoughtful.
Now he wondered what else she had handled.
The thought made him ashamed.
Suspicion could become its own form of laziness.
He switched on the lamp.
Nothing dramatic waited.
No incriminating folder sat conveniently on the table.
There were dead batteries in a ceramic bowl.
Three umbrellas.
A grocery coupon expired in January.
Margaret’s reading glasses lay upside down on a copy of The New Yorker.
Ben touched them.
He remembered buying her nicer glasses for Christmas.
She had returned them.
“Too flattering,” she said. “At my age, a person should be able to frighten customer service representatives.”
He sat on the sofa.
The plastic envelope was still in his pocket.
He took it out.
The note inside was written on a page torn from one of Margaret’s yellow legal pads.
The handwriting shook.
He unfolded it.
Ben,
I am angry with you, which is not unusual, and I imagine you are angry with me, which shows personal growth.
He laughed immediately.
Then his vision blurred.
He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand and continued.
I did not ask you to stay away.
I would like to see you.
I have apparently become surrounded by people who believe decisions are less tiring if they make them for me. This is incorrect.
There is something you need to know about Olivia and the foundation. I have been unkind to her, which does not make what she did acceptable and does not make me correct about everything else.
Please come when you are ready.
If we are still angry, we can be angry in the same room.
The star is yours. I kept it because I am selfish.
Love,
May you like
Mom
That was all.
