Chương 9
“What?”
“Samuel. Is he well?”
“You could call him yourself.”
“He doesn’t take my calls.”
“Why?”
Victoria gave her a tired look.
Claire knew the answer.
“Right.”
They sat in a corner of the lobby.
Victoria ordered tea.
Claire ordered nothing.
“You paid Anna,” Claire said.
“Yes.”
“You helped her leave Dad.”
“Yes.”
“You made her sign an NDA.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“It wasn’t an NDA in the modern sense.”
“Please don’t lawyer your way out of this.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what was it?”
“A settlement agreement.”
“For something you didn’t do.”
“For something my husband did.”
“Why didn’t you leave him?”
Victoria looked toward the lobby windows.
Claire waited.
Finally Victoria said, “Because I was a coward.”
Claire had expected twenty other answers.
Money.
Children.
The company.
Reputation.
She had arguments prepared for all of them.
She had nothing prepared for that.
Victoria stirred her tea.
“I told myself I was protecting you and Daniel. I told myself Thomas would destroy Anna if I challenged him publicly. I told myself the company employed four hundred people. I told myself divorce would give him more time alone with you.”
“Were those things true?”
“Some of them.”
“And the rest?”
“I liked my life.”
Claire looked at her.
Victoria met her eyes.
“I had houses. Friends. Status. People returned my calls. I had spent twenty years becoming Mrs. Thomas Morgan, and I did not know who Victoria was without him.”
Her spoon touched the cup.
A tiny sound.
“So I helped Anna. I paid her. I found her work. And then I went home to dinner with the man who hurt her.”
Claire could not speak.
“I have never forgiven myself for that.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Victoria looked surprised.
Claire did not apologize.
“Why keep sending Samuel money?”
“Because guilt is repetitive.”
“That’s not enough.”
“No.”
“Did you love him?”
Victoria looked at her.
“Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know him.”
“But he was a child.”
“Yes.”
“You watched him grow up?”
“From a distance.”
Claire felt sick.
“Did Dad know?”
“Not at first.”
“When did he find out?”
“When Samuel was nineteen and contacted him.”
“What happened?”
“Thomas came home from Chicago and told me Anna had poisoned the boy against him.”
Victoria laughed quietly.
“I asked what version of events would have made Samuel love him.”
“What did Dad say?”
“He hit me.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Victoria looked into her tea.
“Once.”
“Mom.”
“Do not make it larger because you need him to become entirely bad.”
Claire stared.
“He hit you.”
“Yes.”
“That matters.”
“It does.”
“You never told me.”
“No.”
“Daniel?”
“No.”
Claire rubbed her forehead.
“So all those years—”
“All those years were complicated.”
“That’s a convenient word.”
“It’s an accurate one.”
Claire stood.
She needed distance.
Victoria remained seated.
“Daniel found Anna’s letters after Thomas died. He found the payments. He found Samuel. Then he found the agreement.”
“And confronted you.”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“Because I was ashamed.”
“So he kept digging.”
“Yes.”
“And you told Edward he might be using again.”
Victoria looked away.
“Yes.”
“That was cruel.”
“Yes.”
“You knew exactly what people would think.”
“Yes.”
“You used the worst thing Daniel had ever survived to make him less credible.”
“Yes.”
Claire waited for an excuse.
None came.
That somehow made her angrier.
“And last night you did the same thing to Lily.”
Victoria looked up.
“What?”
“You were afraid, so you made someone smaller carry the shame.”
Victoria’s face changed.
Claire saw the words land.
“She found the video. You couldn’t control what she knew, so you punished her.”
“I didn’t think—”
“No. You did think. You thought about the wedding. The guests. The family. The photograph. You thought about everything except a seven-year-old girl standing in the rain.”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
Claire had seen her mother cry twice.
At Thomas’s funeral.
At Daniel’s.
This time Claire felt no urge to comfort her.
“I am taking Lily home,” she said. “You will not contact her.”
Victoria went still.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Claire.”
“You asked.”
“She is my granddaughter.”
“She is my daughter.”
“I love her.”
“I believe you.”
That hurt Victoria more than disbelief would have.
Claire continued.
“And right now your love is not safe enough.”
Victoria looked down.
Claire left.
For the next three weeks, life became irritatingly normal.
Lily went to school.
Michael worked.
Claire returned to the literacy nonprofit and discovered that while her family had detonated itself, the copier on the fourth floor had also broken.
On Tuesday morning she spent forty minutes arguing with a vendor about toner.
It was almost therapeutic.
People emailed her about grant applications.
Someone stole her yogurt from the office refrigerator.
Lily developed an intense dislike of multiplication tables.
Michael forgot to buy toothpaste.
Claire woke at 3:00 a.m. most nights and read Daniel’s files.
There was no single revelation.
There were hundreds of small ones.
Receipts.
Letters.
Transfers.
Notes.
Daniel had built his investigation badly at first.
He jumped to conclusions. Corrected himself. Accused Edward in one note, apologized in another. He wrote that Victoria was “either a criminal mastermind or Mom with QuickBooks,” then crossed out mastermind.
Claire laughed when she read that.
Then she cried.
The files showed that Harrow Street had begun as Victoria described.
Money was diverted to protect Anna.
Later the same structure paid for Daniel’s treatment when Thomas refused.
After Thomas died, Victoria used it to send anonymous educational grants to Samuel’s school and later to fund a scholarship program there.
Not all the money could be explained.
That mattered.
Claire hired an attorney.
Victoria hated that.
Edward hated it more.
“You’re going to expose all of us,” he told Claire over the phone.
“I’m going to find out what happened.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
“You’re naive.”
“Possibly.”
“The company could face lawsuits.”
“Possibly.”
“People could lose jobs.”
“Then help me separate what’s real from what you’re afraid of.”
May you like
Edward hung up.
Two days later he called back.
