Chương 6
That thought made her close the laptop.
She walked to the bedroom and opened the closet, then forgot why she was there.
For months she had been waking with the sensation that something was already late.
The foundation budget.
The spring donor campaign.
Her mother’s appointments.
Her father’s increasing absences.
The board vote scheduled for Friday.
Every obligation seemed to arrive with Eleanor saying Vanessa’s name in that quiet disappointed way she had used since childhood.
Vanessa, that’s not quite right.
Vanessa, slow down.
Vanessa, you’re making this harder than it needs to be.
At fourteen, she had hated the correction.
At thirty-nine, she still heard it as judgment.
That did not explain the cane.
Nothing did.
She knew this.
She simply did not yet know what to do with knowing it.
At noon, Richard called.
Vanessa watched his name appear and disappear.
He called again.
She answered the third time.
“What?”
“Your mother wants the key to our house returned.”
Vanessa stared through the windows at the river.
“Fine.”
“And the garage code will be changed.”
“Fine.”
“We’ve revoked your access to her medical portal.”
Vanessa laughed.
“Oh, good. Who’s going to schedule the neurologist now? You?”
“I’ll manage.”
“You don’t know the neurologist’s name.”
“I can learn.”
“You don’t know what medications she takes.”
“I can learn.”
“You don’t know which pharmacy fills them.”
“Vanessa.”
“No, Dad. This is what I mean. Everybody gets to be horrified now. Great. Be horrified. I’ve been the one doing everything.”
“Doing everything does not give you the right to put your hands on her.”
“I know that.”
Richard went quiet.
The admission seemed to surprise both of them.
Vanessa sat at the kitchen island.
Her voice dropped.
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s what I have.”
Richard breathed slowly into the phone.
“Did you kick the cane because she refused to stand?”
Vanessa’s fingers tightened around the edge of the counter.
“She was supposed to meet donors.”
“She’s seventy-four, not twelve.”
“She had agreed.”
“And then?”
“She changed her mind.”
“So?”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“So nothing. That’s the answer everybody wants. She changed her mind, and I was supposed to smile and rearrange the whole night, and the board vote, and the donors, and—”
“What board vote?”
Vanessa stopped.
Richard’s voice changed.
“What board vote?”
She closed her eyes.
“Ask Mom.”
The call ended thirty seconds later.
Richard found Eleanor in the kitchen eating toast over the sink.
He stood in the doorway.
“What board vote?”
Eleanor kept chewing.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Ellie.”
She turned.
He looked genuinely wounded.
That annoyed her.
“Oh, stop.”
“You were going to vote on something Friday without telling me?”
“It’s the foundation board, Richard. We vote on things.”
“Vanessa made it sound like it concerned her.”
Eleanor put the toast down.
Richard waited.
She wiped butter from her thumb.
“I planned to ask the board to appoint an interim executive director.”
He stared.
“You were firing Vanessa?”
“Temporarily.”
“Why?”
Eleanor looked toward the window.
The neighbor’s landscaper was blowing leaves from a driveway even though there were hardly any leaves.
The machine whined.
Richard waited.
“Because I don’t trust the numbers she has been giving us.”
“What numbers?”
“The expansion budget.”
Richard’s face shifted from anger to concentration.
The businessman in him arrived.
Eleanor saw it and regretted speaking.
“No.”
“What?”
“You are not taking over.”
“I asked a question.”
“You became eighty percent spreadsheet before I finished the sentence.”
“Ellie.”
She picked up the toast again.
“The foundation committed to opening three family support centers this year. Costs increased. Vanessa said the construction overruns were temporary.”
“And you think they aren’t?”
“I think she has been moving expenses between programs to make the overruns look smaller.”
“That’s serious.”
“I know.”
“Illegal?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Do you have evidence?”
“I have questions.”
“Who else knows?”
“Celia.”
Richard pulled out his phone.
Eleanor pointed the toast at him.
“Put it down.”
He did.
Reluctantly.
“She knew I was going to challenge her,” Eleanor said. “Vanessa did.”
“And you still let her manage your appointments?”
“This is why married people should have separate categories for work and family.”
“This is not funny.”
“I’m aware.”
Richard sat.
“Did she pressure you about the vote?”
Eleanor looked at her wrist.
“Not directly.”
“What does that mean?”
“She kept telling me I was tired. Forgetful. Overwhelmed.”
Richard’s face hardened.
“She suggested that after my fall, maybe I should step back from the board.”
“Did you tell her no?”
“Repeatedly.”
“And last night?”
“She wanted me at Table One when the governor’s former chief of staff arrived. I told her my hip hurt and I needed ten minutes.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Eleanor continued.
“She said I was embarrassing her. I said she was behaving like a spoiled child.”
“Ellie.”
“What?”
“You said that?”
“Yes.”
“In public?”
“Not loudly.”
“That doesn’t justify anything.”
“I know.”
“But it matters.”
“It does.”
They sat with that.
Eleanor had no interest in becoming a saint because someone hurt her.
She had been difficult with Vanessa.
Critical.
Sometimes cruel in the precise, polished ways respectable mothers could be cruel while believing they were improving their daughters.
She had corrected Vanessa’s clothes, her posture, her college choices, the men she dated, the way she ran meetings.
She had apologized for some of it.
Not enough.
Still, the bruise on her wrist remained.
Past cruelty did not convert present cruelty into justice.
The doorbell rang.
Richard stood.
“Who is that?”
“I ordered groceries.”
“We have groceries.”
“We are out of lemons.”
He stared at her.
She stared back.
“Richard, if this family cannot obtain lemons without a strategic response, we are doomed.”
He laughed despite himself.
It lasted three seconds.
The relief hurt.
Maya’s mother called again after lunch.
This time Maya answered.
“Hi.”
“Are you insane?”
“Good to hear your voice too.”
“You touched that woman?”
May you like
“Mom.”
“I’m not saying you were wrong. I’m saying rich people sue.”
