Chương 9
“I didn’t name Claire.”
“You initiated the review.”
“You involved her.”
“I gave instructions. She followed them.”
“Then tell that to investigators.”
“I have.”
“Good.”
Robert lowered his voice.
“She had a sick husband. She needed the job.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t suddenly discover empathy because it’s useful.”
Robert hung up.
Claire agreed to an interview six days later.
Daniel was not allowed to attend.
He received a summary through counsel.
Four years earlier, Robert had instructed Claire that all communications from Elena Ruiz were to be forwarded to Harold Wynn.
Claire had diverted two calls.
She had returned one email with a message stating Daniel did not wish to communicate.
She had also received a certified envelope addressed personally to Daniel.
She gave it unopened to Robert.
Daniel read that sentence four times.
“What happened to the envelope?”
His attorney looked at the summary.
“Claire says she doesn’t know.”
“Ask my father.”
“We did.”
“And?”
“He says he doesn’t remember receiving it.”
Daniel laughed.
His attorney did not.
“What was in it?”
“We don’t know.”
Daniel knew someone who might.
He called Elena.
She answered while grocery shopping.
He could hear cart wheels rattling over tile.
“The letter,” he said.
“What letter?”
“The certified one you sent to my apartment.”
She went quiet.
“What was in it?”
A long pause.
“A sonogram.”
Daniel leaned against his office wall.
“And?”
“A note.”
“What did it say?”
Elena did not answer.
“Do you have a copy?”
“No.”
He heard a child ask for cereal.
Elena said, “Not that one.”
Daniel waited.
Finally she said, “I wrote that I didn’t care what your father thought. I wrote that I was scared and angry, but if you wanted to be there, I needed you to show up yourself.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“I said I would wait until Friday.”
“What happened Friday?”
“Nothing.”
The grocery cart squeaked.
“I stopped waiting.”
Daniel lowered the phone.
For the rest of that day he found it difficult to perform ordinary tasks.
He approved a construction budget.
He reviewed insurance renewals.
He sat through a forty-minute meeting about guest loyalty software.
At lunch, he opened a turkey sandwich and stared at it until the bread dried around the edges.
Human beings, he discovered, could learn that an entire version of their life had been stolen and still receive calendar reminders about quarterly forecasts.
At five forty, his phone rang.
Claire Mercer.
Daniel stared at the screen before answering.
“Claire.”
She sounded as if she had been crying.
“I’m sorry.”
He said nothing.
“I told them everything.”
“I know.”
“No, you know what’s in the statement.”
Daniel sat down.
“There’s more?”
“I saw the envelope.”
His grip tightened around the phone.
“My father said he doesn’t remember it.”
“He remembers.”
“Claire.”
“I shouldn’t be calling you.”
“Then why are you?”
She inhaled shakily.
“Because I have spent four years pretending I didn’t know what happened to it.”
Daniel waited.
“I gave it to Robert in his office. He opened it.”
Daniel could hear his own breathing.
“There was a sonogram.”
“Yes.”
“And a note.”
“He read it.”
Daniel shut his eyes.
Claire’s voice cracked.
“He told me to shred the envelope and the letter.”
“What about the sonogram?”
Silence.
“Claire.”
“He put it in his desk.”
Daniel opened his eyes.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer disturbed him more than if Robert had destroyed it.
“Is it still there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Which desk?”
“His office at the family house.”
Daniel stood.
Then stopped.
He had spent four years reacting too late.
That did not mean every urgent feeling deserved action.
He called his attorney.
By the next morning, counsel had formally requested preservation of relevant documents and devices.
Daniel did not go to his father’s house.
He did not search a drawer.
He did not give Robert the opportunity to claim Daniel had manufactured evidence.
Two days later, Robert’s attorney produced the sonogram.
It was inside a leather portfolio.
Elena identified it from a photograph.
On the back, in her handwriting, were three words.
All three, apparently.
Daniel sat alone when he saw the image.
At eight weeks, the shapes were barely shapes.
He touched the screen.
Then pulled his hand away.
Elena’s second supervised visit with Daniel took place in a neighborhood park.
Mateo spoke to him this time.
His first voluntary sentence was, “You throw bad.”
Daniel had thrown a foam ball over Theo’s head.
“I do.”
“You have to look.”
“I was looking.”
“No, at him.”
Daniel looked at Elena.
She bit the inside of her cheek.
Mateo marched over, retrieved the ball, and demonstrated.
His throw traveled six feet and landed behind him.
Daniel nodded solemnly.
“I see the difference.”
Mateo narrowed his eyes.
Elena laughed.
Daniel looked at her.
For one unguarded second they were four years earlier, sharing a private joke at somebody else’s expense.
Then Grace fell off a low climbing structure.
The sound of her cry erased everything else.
Elena reached her first.
Daniel stopped three feet away.
Grace had scraped her palm.
There was very little blood.
She screamed as if the hand had been removed.
Elena lifted her.
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
“I need a Band-Aid.”
“I have one.”
“Pink.”
“I don’t have pink.”
Grace cried harder.
Daniel crouched beside them.
“I have a blue one.”
Elena looked at him.
He opened his wallet.
Inside was a small adhesive bandage with cartoon sharks.
“You carry Band-Aids now?” Elena asked.
Daniel looked embarrassed.
“I bought a box after the museum.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
Grace accepted the shark.
Daniel handed it to Elena rather than applying it himself.
That mattered.
Elena noticed.
So did Daniel.
Progress, she discovered, was irritatingly small.
It was not Daniel announcing that he would change his life.
It was him keeping a Band-Aid in his wallet and understanding that Grace still wanted her mother to put it on.
May you like
The first proposed parenting plan from Daniel’s attorney was thirty-six pages.
Elena hated it.
