Part 10
“Do you want to stop?” he asked.
“No.”
She walked past.
The phone captured the column as it slid by in frame: cream molding, warm sconce light, no mark, no confession. A beautiful piece of wall where an ugly thing had happened.
They entered the adjacent sitting room off the foyer, still connected to the kitchen but farther from the arched hallway. Celia turned on two lamps. The lighting was softer there, less surgical. Mara sat on the edge of a chair and finally lowered the phone.
Her thumb pressed stop.
The red dot disappeared.
The silence after recording felt enormous.
She immediately saved the file. Her hands shook so badly Adam had to talk her through sending it.
“Press share,” he said.
“I know how to use my phone.”
“Sorry.”
“No. Say it.”
He stayed beside her while she sent copies to herself, to Elise, to the lawyer she had retained quietly two weeks earlier, and to the secure folder Elise had created. Celia sent Harriet the documents Adam photographed. Harriet kept speaking in steady instructions: preserve original papers, photograph any marks, write separate accounts, do not confront Victor again tonight, do not discuss finances without counsel, do not allow him access to devices.
The house seemed to listen.
From somewhere down the hall came the muted sound of a door closing. Victor in his study, perhaps. Or leaving it. Each distant sound tightened Mara’s shoulders.
Celia noticed. “Can we leave?”
Harriet answered, “Yes, if you can do so safely and without passing him. Do you have car keys?”
Celia looked at Adam.
Adam patted his pocket. “Yes.”
Mara looked up sharply. “We’re leaving?”
Celia looked at her. “Do you want to?”
The question was almost unbearable.
For years, decisions in the Ellison house had arrived pre-decided, dressed up as choices. Which school would suit you best? Which therapist understands our family? Which friends are becoming unhealthy for you? Which apartment is practical? Which version of events preserves everyone? Now her mother asked a real question and waited.
Mara’s eyes filled again.
“Yes,” she said.
Celia nodded. “Then we leave.”
“Do not pack extensively,” Harriet said. “Take phones, documents, medications, identification if immediately accessible, and yourselves. Nothing else is worth re-entering conflict tonight.”
Mara looked down at herself. Loose cardigan. Casual pants. No shoes.
“My shoes are in the kitchen.”
Adam stood. “I’ll get them.”
“No,” Mara said too quickly.
He stopped.
The thought of anyone going back through the kitchen alone made her body panic.
Celia removed her own shoes, elegant flats, and set them near Mara’s feet. “Wear mine.”
“They won’t fit.”
“Wear them anyway.”
Mara did.
They were half a size too small and strangely comforting.
Celia gathered her purse from the side table. Adam kept the documents tucked under his arm. Mara held both phones now, hers and the weight of what it contained. They moved together toward the front foyer, not through the arched hallway near Victor’s study but through the longer route past the dining room. The mansion seemed too quiet, too large, too full of polished surfaces that reflected them in fragments: mother, daughter, son, papers, phones, fear.
At the front door, Adam paused.
“What?” Celia whispered.
“My keys,” he said. “Kitchen counter.”
Mara’s stomach turned.
Celia closed her eyes.
Harriet’s voice came through the phone. “Do not send anyone alone. Is there another vehicle?”
Celia looked at her purse. “Mine. I have mine.”
They continued.
The night air outside the mansion was cold, but there were no exterior cutaways in Mara’s memory later, no cinematic image of moonlit stone or a car pulling away. What she remembered was the interior threshold: the polished foyer floor under Celia’s tight shoes, the heavy front door opening, the warm mansion light behind them, and Adam’s hand hovering near her back without touching because he had learned at least one thing quickly.
They did not speak until they were in Celia’s car inside the garage connected to the house.
Even then, no one started the engine immediately.
Celia sat behind the wheel, both hands gripping it. Adam sat in the back because Mara could not stand the idea of anyone behind her except him, and even that took effort. Mara sat in the passenger seat with the papers in her lap now and both phones glowing faintly.
Harriet remained on speaker.
“Where are you going?” Harriet asked.
Celia looked at Mara.
Mara said, “Not a hotel he uses.”
Adam said, “My apartment.”
“No,” Celia and Mara said together.
Adam flinched.
Mara softened her voice by force. “He pays for it.”
Adam leaned back. “Right.”
Celia said, “My cousin Lillian. He hates her. She hates him more.”
Harriet said, “Call her before you arrive. Do not text details. Tell her you need a place to stay tonight and that counsel is involved.”
Celia nodded, then remembered Harriet could not see her. “Yes.”
Mara looked back at the interior door leading from the garage into the mansion. It remained closed.
She expected Victor to appear.
He did not.
That felt less like relief than suspense.
Celia started the car.
The garage door rumbled open. The sound was too loud, too mechanical, too much like announcement. Mara gripped the papers. Adam muttered something under his breath that might have been a prayer, though he had not prayed since he was fifteen and Victor said religion was useful only when donors cared.
As they pulled away through the connected garage exit, Mara kept looking at the door in the mirror until the mansion interior disappeared behind them.
Only then did she begin to shake so violently Celia had to pull over at the end of the private drive.
No one spoke for a while.
Harriet stayed on the line.
Finally, Mara said, “I thought the recording would make me feel safe.”
Celia’s mouth trembled. “Does it?”
“No.”
Adam leaned forward from the back seat. “But it made him stop.”
May you like
Mara looked down at the papers.
“For now,” she said.
