Chương 3
“I’m not riding in that man’s car,” Rosa said.
“I meant her car.”
Rosa stared at Everett as though testing whether he was mocking her.
He removed his suit jacket, folded it once, and handed it to his driver. “Tell the board the meeting is postponed.”
“For how long, sir?”
“I don’t know.”
It was the first time in years that Everett had spoken those words to an employee.
Rosa’s Honda smelled of peppermint gum, disinfectant wipes, and a paper bag of onions on the floor behind the passenger seat. Everett folded himself into the front, his knees nearly touching the dashboard. A plastic saint swung from the rearview mirror.
Rosa started the engine.
“It does that when it’s cold,” she said as the car coughed.
Everett fastened his seat belt.
“I wasn’t going to mention it.”
“You looked at it.”
“I look at everything.”
“That sounds tiring.”
In the back seat, Eli held the locket against his chest. Noah leaned against him, eyes open but unfocused.
Everett watched them in the side mirror.
“Why did Claire wait until today?”
Rosa pulled into traffic. “Ask her.”
“I intend to.”
“She may not wake up.”
The words were blunt enough to make Daniel, following in the sedan behind them, disappear from Everett’s thoughts.
Rosa changed lanes without signaling. A taxi driver shouted through his closed window.
“She found out six months ago,” Rosa continued. “The valve was bad. Doctors wanted surgery sooner. She kept delaying because she didn’t know who would take the boys if something happened.”
“You could.”
“I have a daughter in nursing school and a husband who thinks retirement means repairing one cabinet for six weeks. We love them. Loving children doesn’t make every legal problem disappear.”
“Did Claire have a will?”
“Yes.”
“Did she name me?”
Rosa’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “She named me temporarily. She wrote that you should be contacted, but she didn’t give you custody.”
“Why?”
“She thought your mother would get to you first.”
Everett looked out at the river.
The gold morning light had become flat against the steel and glass of downtown. Construction barriers narrowed the street. A worker in an orange vest waved them through, then bent to pick up a dropped coffee cup.
“I haven’t spoken to Claire in five years,” Everett said.
“I know.”
“She changed her number.”
“I know.”
“She returned my letters.”
“I know.”
“She told me she had lost the baby.”
Rosa’s jaw shifted.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You reacted.”
“You’re not in your office now, Mr. Lawson. I don’t work for you.”
“No. But you know something.”
“I know Claire cried in my kitchen for two months. I know she checked the mailbox three times a day even after she told herself she had stopped waiting. I know she almost called you when the boys were born, and then a package arrived.”
“What package?”
Rosa glanced at him.
“A letter with your signature. It said you knew the pregnancy had continued. It said you wanted no contact and would use every legal resource your family had if she named you as the father.”
Everett’s first instinct was denial. It came cold and immediate.
“I never wrote that.”
“Then somebody did a good job.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Claire does.”
Behind them, Noah coughed. Eli pulled a crumpled tissue from his pocket and wiped his brother’s mouth with the clumsy seriousness of a child imitating an adult.
Everett turned forward again.
The dashboard clock was eleven minutes slow.
He found the detail intolerable.
At Northwestern Memorial, a hospital employee met them near the surgical waiting area. Tasha Greene wore navy scrubs and an identification badge clipped to her pocket. She had kind eyes, but there was nothing soft in the way she assessed Everett.
“Ms. Alvarez?”
Rosa touched her arm. “What happened?”
“Claire developed an arrhythmia during induction. They stabilized her and continued. The surgeon asked me to tell you it will be longer than expected.”
“Can we see her?”
“Not while she’s in the operating room.”
The boys pressed closer to Rosa.
Tasha crouched. “Your mom is still with the doctors. They’re taking care of her.”
“Is her heart stopped?” Noah asked.
“No.”
“Did it stop before?”
Tasha paused. “It got confused for a minute. The doctors helped it.”
Noah accepted this and began twisting the hem of his sweater.
Tasha stood. “Claire signed an authorization this morning. It names Rosa, me, and Everett Lawson.”
Her eyes moved to Everett.
“She listed you as the biological father of her minor children. That allows the care team to speak with you about the decisions she documented. It does not make you their legal guardian.”
“I understand.”
Tasha seemed mildly surprised that he did not argue.
“She also left you a message.”
“Written?”
“Video. On her phone. She asked that you see it only if there were serious complications.”
Rosa looked away.
“Are there?” Everett asked.
“Yes.”
The private consultation room contained four chairs, a box of tissues, and a wall print of sailboats that had been chosen by someone who believed water was universally calming. Daniel arrived with Marcus and the Cedar file. The twins remained outside with Rosa, watching cartoons on her phone without sound.
Tasha placed Claire’s phone on the table.
“The passcode is the boys’ birthday.”
Everett looked at her.
“March ninth,” she said. “Twenty twenty-two.”
He entered the numbers.
A video filled the screen.
Claire sat on a hospital bed wearing a paper cap. She looked older than the woman in the locket, though not in the ways Everett had expected. There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes and a firmness in her mouth that had not been there at twenty-nine. A monitor lead disappeared beneath her gown. She had always hated hospitals. He could see it in the way she kept rubbing her thumb against the side of her index finger.
May you like
“Everett,” she began, then stopped.
Someone outside the frame asked whether she wanted another minute.
