Chương 10
Nobody involved considered themselves a villain.
Margaret considered herself a protector.
Ethan considered himself a protector.
Thomas, after receiving the false rejection, considered staying away a form of protection.
June considered silence loyalty.
Even Megan had withheld a disturbing comment because she did not want to upset Rachel before the wedding.
Protection had become the respectable word everyone used when they were afraid of what Rachel might decide for herself.
She looked around the table.
“No more.”
June frowned.
“No more what?”
“No one filters anything.”
Thomas opened his mouth.
Rachel pointed at him.
“You too.”
He closed it.
“If somebody calls me, I get told. If there’s a document, I see it. If something makes me angry or scared or embarrassed, that’s my problem.”
Megan nodded.
Rachel turned to her.
“You don’t get to nod like you’re exempt.”
Megan sighed.
“Fair.”
“June?”
“Yes.”
“Everything.”
“Yes.”
“Dad?”
Thomas looked at her carefully.
“Everything.”
Rachel gathered the papers.
“For the next few weeks I’m going to make decisions people don’t like.”
Megan asked, “Such as?”
Rachel looked at the payment record.
“I’m not helping anybody hide this.”
Harrow & Pierce’s attorney called the following afternoon.
Then the Vale Family Foundation’s board chair.
Then Rachel’s own employer.
Price and Keller had become Keller Bennett Architects two years earlier when Rachel made partner. Her name was on proposals, preservation awards, a museum project currently under review, and suddenly on entertainment websites beside photographs of her canceled wedding.
Her business partner, Daniel Keller, was sixty-two and had the permanently disappointed expression of a man who believed civilization had declined after architects stopped drawing by hand.
He closed Rachel’s office door.
“Are you planning to become famous?”
“No.”
“Good. Famous architects are generally unbearable.”
Rachel sat.
Daniel placed a printed article on her desk.
“Client asked about it.”
“Which one?”
“St. Matthew restoration.”
Rachel stared.
A church.
Of course.
“What did you tell them?”
“That your family dysfunction has not altered the compressive strength of limestone.”
Rachel laughed.
Daniel did not.
Then, reluctantly, he smiled.
“They’re nervous about press.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re allowed not to.”
Rachel looked at the article.
“I’m going to release a statement.”
Daniel sighed.
“That sentence usually ruins my day.”
“It’s factual.”
“They all say that.”
“I’m not protecting Ethan.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Or the foundation.”
Daniel sat across from her.
“Rachel, there’s something between protecting somebody and setting yourself on fire for truth.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She looked at him.
Daniel tapped the article.
“You don’t owe strangers a complete family history.”
“I’m not giving them one.”
“Good.”
“I’m saying my father is alive. I was falsely told he was dead by my fiancé. Money was paid by my grandmother’s foundation in connection with preventing contact. The wedding is canceled.”
Daniel stared.
“That is remarkably close to setting yourself on fire.”
“I’m already on fire.”
He considered that.
“Fair enough.”
The statement went out at six.
Rachel turned off her phone.
At seven, Thomas arrived with Chinese food.
At seven ten, Megan came with wine, saw Thomas, and stopped.
“Can you drink around this?”
Thomas looked at the bottle.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“I can put it away.”
“You don’t have to.”
Rachel said, “I don’t want wine.”
Megan put it away.
Thomas opened cartons.
Nobody discussed the statement for almost twenty minutes.
Megan complained about a coworker who used the phrase “circle back” seventeen times in one meeting.
Thomas said the phrase should be illegal.
Rachel told him he had no authority to regulate office language because he still referred to email as “the email.”
Thomas insisted that was not true.
Megan asked him what Instagram was.
Thomas said, “A mistake.”
For half an hour they were three people eating mediocre lo mein.
Rachel noticed the quietness of that fact.
Life did not wait until major emotional issues were resolved before requiring dinner.
Later Thomas washed the containers for recycling.
Rachel said, “You know you don’t need to wash those.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You’re wasting water.”
“They reject dirty containers.”
“Who’s they?”
“Recycling.”
“Recycling is not a person.”
Thomas pointed at her.
“That’s exactly the kind of attitude that got us here.”
Megan nearly fell off the chair laughing.
Rachel laughed too.
Then Thomas’s sleeve pulled back.
There was an old scar near his wrist.
Rachel saw it.
Her laughter stopped.
Thomas followed her eyes.
“Work accident.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
“Bad?”
“Six stitches.”
“Why do I care?”
The question came out harsher than she intended.
Thomas looked at her.
“Because you’re my kid.”
Rachel’s face tightened.
“No. Don’t make it simple.”
“I’m not.”
“You missed entire years.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to act surprised that I hate discovering scars I wasn’t there for.”
Thomas dried his hands.
“I’m not surprised.”
Rachel looked away.
He continued quietly.
“I hate that there are things about you I don’t know too.”
“Like what?”
“What you eat for breakfast. Whether you still sleep with the window open when it rains. Who Daniel is. Why you cut your hair short three years ago and grew it back.”
Rachel stared.
“You saw that?”
“Firm website.”
“You really checked.”
“More than I should’ve.”
“That’s creepy.”
“Probably.”
Rachel swallowed.
“I cut it because Mom used to like it long.”
Thomas waited.
“I got tired of looking the way she preferred.”
He nodded.
Then, because he was learning, he did not explain the moment.
Ethan requested one final meeting.
Rachel ignored the first message.
Then he sent something different.
I found the voicemail Thomas left at your office. I have it. You should hear it.
Rachel read the message three times.
They met at Daniel’s office after hours.
Rachel brought Megan.
Ethan brought nobody.
He looked thinner.
His firm had asked him to resign that morning.
Rachel knew because the news had already leaked.
Ethan placed an old phone on the conference table.
May you like
“This was my work phone from three years ago.”
“Why do you have his voicemail?”
