Chương 6
That should have comforted Claire.
Instead she discovered that vague information created more appetite than clear information.
By noon, a client asked if she was “doing all right personally.”
At one thirty, an old college acquaintance she had not spoken to in six years texted, Thinking of you. No need to reply.
Claire deleted it.
At two, Martin put a stack of drawings beside her.
“You want the courthouse or the library?”
“Library.”
“Good. Courthouse client says ‘vision’ every four minutes.”
Claire opened the drawings.
“Cruel.”
“I’m protecting you.”
She worked until six.
It helped.
Dimensions remained dimensions even when men lied.
Stone had tolerances.
Steel had loads.
A column could not claim it had been misunderstood.
At six fifteen she was still drawing when the baby began hiccupping.
Claire leaned back and watched the small repetitive movement beneath her shirt.
Martin passed her desk, carrying his coat.
“You going home?”
“Eventually.”
“That’s not a place.”
“Leah’s.”
He nodded.
He left, then returned thirty seconds later.
“By the way, if anyone calls here asking personal questions, reception has been told you died.”
Claire looked up.
“Could complicate payroll.”
“We’ll revisit if necessary.”
She smiled.
After he left, she sat alone in the studio while traffic moved below the windows.
For four years her normal route home had ended at the apartment she shared with Ethan on West Seventy-Third Street.
She could picture almost every object in it.
Her yellow mug by the sink.
His running shoes beneath the bench.
A half-assembled crib in the second bedroom.
The ridiculous bronze lamp they had argued about buying at a flea market.
Her life had not vanished.
It was all still there.
That was somehow harder.
Two days later she went back for clothes.
Ethan was not home.
Claire had insisted on that.
Leah came with her anyway.
The apartment smelled like coffee and the cedar detergent Ethan preferred.
Claire stopped inside the doorway.
Leah waited.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Useful answer.”
Claire put down an empty suitcase.
The apartment looked clean.
Too clean.
Ethan had always cleaned when anxious.
The kitchen counters were bare. Throw pillows aligned on the couch. His shoes arranged under the bench.
Claire walked toward the nursery.
The door was open.
One wall was gray-blue.
The crib remained unfinished.
A screwdriver lay on the floor beside it.
She stood in the doorway.
Leah appeared behind her.
“Want me to pack this room?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Claire went to the bedroom.
She packed work clothes, underwear, two sweaters, maternity jeans, toiletries, and the old cotton robe she had stolen from a hotel in Maine years before she met the Bells.
On Ethan’s dresser sat a framed photograph from their engagement dinner.
Claire turned it facedown.
Then she turned it back.
“Why did you do that?” Leah asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Fair.”
Claire opened the nightstand drawer.
Inside was a black ring box.
For one sick second she thought Vanessa’s ring would be inside.
It was not.
The box was empty.
Leah saw it.
“Oh.”
Claire shut the drawer.
“He probably kept the receipt there.”
“Do you want to look?”
“No.”
“You’re a better person than I am.”
“I’m not being good. I’m being tired.”
In the closet Claire found three maternity dresses she had forgotten buying.
She put them in the suitcase.
Her phone vibrated.
Margaret.
Claire let it ring.
Leah sat on the bed.
“You’re going to have to talk to her eventually.”
“I talked to her.”
“I mean again.”
“I know.”
“Do you hate her?”
Claire folded a sweater.
“No.”
“Are you angry?”
“Yes.”
“At her?”
“Yes.”
“Those can coexist.”
Claire looked at her.
“Did you come here to help or narrate?”
“Mostly judge your folding.”
Claire threw the sweater at her.
Leah caught it.
For thirty seconds they laughed like sisters who had nothing important to solve.
Then Claire found Ethan’s spare cuff links in one of her cosmetic bags and started crying.
There was no warning.
She sat on the closet floor with the cuff links in her palm and cried so hard she could not breathe properly.
Leah sat beside her.
This time Claire let her put an arm around her.
“What is wrong with me?” Claire said.
“Those are ugly cuff links.”
Claire laughed into her hand.
“I bought them.”
“That explains why you’re upset.”
Claire cried harder.
When it passed, she washed her face and kept packing.
The next shift came from Margaret.
She asked Claire to meet for lunch, and Claire refused.
Margaret asked again four days later.
Claire refused again.
On the third attempt Margaret wrote, I owe you information, not an apology luncheon. Choose the place.
Claire chose a diner near her office.
Margaret arrived seven minutes early wearing navy instead of white and looked deeply uncomfortable in a vinyl booth.
Claire noticed that with some satisfaction.
A server dropped two menus.
Margaret opened hers.
“Do they have tea?”
“It’s a diner.”
“That was not an answer.”
“They have brown water in ceramic pots.”
Margaret glanced at her.
Claire almost smiled.
They ordered.
Margaret placed the cream envelope containing the bracelet on the table.
“You left this at Leah’s.”
“I know.”
“She gave it back to me.”
“I know.”
“She said if I brought it here, you might throw it into my coffee.”
“I like your sister.”
“Everyone does eventually.”
Margaret pushed the envelope toward her.
Claire left it between them.
“What information?”
Margaret folded her hands.
“I confronted Ethan about what he told me.”
“And?”
“He admitted that he began telling me you planned to leave in November.”
Claire nodded.
That part no longer surprised her.
“What else?”
Margaret looked toward the window.
“He asked me in January whether I would support him financially if you moved out of state with the baby.”
Claire stared.
“What?”
“He framed it as hypothetical.”
“What does support him financially mean?”
“Legal expenses.”
Claire felt heat rise in her face.
“He was preparing for a custody fight?”
May you like
Margaret shook her head.
“No. I don’t think he was preparing. I think he was testing what I would do.”
