Chương 6
Nathan felt the bottom of the story shift again.
“What trust?” he asked.
Eleanor did not answer.
Nathan took out his phone.
His mother finally looked at him.
“Do not call legal counsel tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because once you put lawyers into this, you will not be able to control where it goes.”
Nathan stared at her.
“You put lawyers into it before Mia was born.”
Eleanor had no answer to that.
He called anyway.
The gala did not collapse.
That irritated Nathan for reasons he could not explain.
He had imagined, during the twenty-seven minutes he spent upstairs, that something so enormous in his own life ought to disrupt the physical machinery downstairs. The lights should fail. The orchestra should stop. The auction should be abandoned.
Instead, by the time he returned to the ballroom, dessert had been served.
People were eating chocolate mousse.
The foundation president met him near the stairs and asked whether he still planned to give the closing remarks.
Nathan looked at him for several seconds.
“Apparently.”
The man frowned.
“Sorry?”
“Yes. I’ll do it.”
There were whispers now.
Phones tilted away when Nathan passed.
A woman he had known since childhood touched his forearm and asked whether everything was all right.
“No,” Nathan said.
She blinked.
He kept walking.
He found Simon near the backstage corridor.
“Lauren and Mia?”
“Private room on fourteen. Ms. Harper didn’t want to leave through the lobby.”
“Good.”
“Your mother?”
Nathan glanced across the ballroom.
Eleanor was speaking to two trustees.
“Still working.”
Simon lowered his voice.
“There are already posts.”
“About?”
“You crouching under a buffet table. The child. Your mother confronting you.”
Nathan closed his eyes briefly.
“Any names?”
“Not yet.”
“Keep it that way if you can.”
“We can request discretion from guests.”
“Don’t threaten anyone.”
Simon looked offended.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
Nathan rubbed the bridge of his nose.
The headache had arrived.
He rarely drank more than one glass at events. Tonight he had managed half a sip.
“What do I say downstairs?”
Simon considered.
“I’m security.”
“I know.”
“I think you should ask the people you pay to answer that.”
Nathan laughed despite himself.
Simon smiled.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re right.”
The foundation president was approaching again.
Nathan looked through the ballroom toward the stage.
For most of his life, a room like this had felt manageable because everything in it had rules. Donations were thanked. Investors were reassured. Mistakes were corrected privately. Family problems remained family problems.
His mother had built a life around that system.
Nathan had inherited more of it than he liked to admit.
He walked to the stage.
Applause started before he reached the microphone.
He stood beneath warm light and looked out at four hundred faces.
Some curious.
Some concerned.
Most pretending not to be either.
The speech in the teleprompter thanked sponsors, celebrated the foundation’s pediatric housing initiative, and made a joke about an auctioned weekend in Napa.
Nathan read the first two lines.
Then stopped.
The room shifted.
He looked toward his mother.
Eleanor stood beside a table near the front.
For one second their eyes met.
Nathan did not expose her.
He was angry enough to want to.
That was exactly why he did not.
“There’s been an unexpected family matter tonight,” he said. “Some of you saw part of it. A child was involved. She is safe, and because she is a child, I’m asking everyone in this room not to photograph her, identify her, or speculate publicly about who she is.”
The room became utterly quiet.
Nathan continued.
“I know I can’t control what anyone posts. I’m asking anyway.”
He paused.
The request felt almost embarrassingly small.
Then a woman near the front put her phone into her handbag.
Someone else did the same.
Not everyone.
Enough.
Nathan finished the prepared thank-you in ninety seconds and left the stage.
He did not make the Napa joke.
Upstairs, Mia was asleep.
She had curled sideways in an armchair with Nathan’s suit jacket over her legs after all.
Lauren sat near the window with her shoes off.
One of her heels had a blister covered by a hotel bandage.
She looked at Nathan as he entered.
“You talked about her?”
“Not by name.”
“I saw.”
A television on the wall showed the local news with the sound off.
Nathan’s face was in a small box beneath a headline about the gala.
“That was fast.”
Lauren shrugged.
“You people are news.”
Nathan sat in the chair opposite her.
“We people?”
“Rich people doing weird things.”
“That’s fair.”
Lauren looked toward Mia.
“She has school tomorrow.”
Nathan glanced at the sleeping child.
“I don’t think she’s going.”
“She has a spelling test.”
He looked at Lauren.
“She just found her dead father’s brother under a buffet.”
“She didn’t find you. She grabbed you.”
“Strong distinction.”
“She studied.”
Nathan smiled.
Lauren did not.
Then she did, barely.
It vanished quickly.
“What happens now?”
Nathan leaned back.
“My general counsel is coming.”
Lauren stiffened.
“That sounds bad.”
“She works for me, not my mother.”
“Same company.”
“Not for this conversation.”
Lauren rubbed her palms together.
“I don’t want money.”
Nathan believed her.
That did not mean money would never matter.
Everybody needed money eventually. Rent, school, groceries, car repairs, dentist bills. Pretending otherwise was one of the habits rich people used to misunderstand everyone else.
“What do you want?”
Lauren looked at Mia.
“I wanted her to know where she came from.”
“That’s it?”
“No.”
Nathan waited.
Lauren’s mouth twisted.
“I want to stop being afraid of your mother.”
Through the glass doors, Manhattan glowed.
Nathan looked toward the hallway.
Eleanor had not come upstairs.
“Why were you afraid?”
Lauren stared at him as though the answer should be obvious.
“Because she always knew more than I did.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
She began counting on her fingers.
“My address. My job. Mia’s preschool. When I changed apartments. When I was late on rent.”
May you like
Nathan’s stomach tightened.
“She contacted your landlord?”
