Part 4
She had once taken his face in both hands and said, “You know helping isn’t always the same as listening.”
He had laughed because he did not know what else to do.
She had not laughed back.
Now, on the marble floor, he listened.
Not just to the words she managed to say.
To the spaces between them.
To the way she stopped when Vivian moved.
To the way her voice became smaller when she said she had pushed back.
To the fact that she seemed afraid not only of what had happened, but of what Julian might decide it meant.
“I need you to tell me from the beginning,” he said.
Elena’s eyes opened.
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
“No.” Her breath caught. “You need to call for help.”
“I will. As soon as Vivian comes back.”
A faint, strained smile touched her mouth.
“You still think she’s coming back.”
The smile disappeared immediately, but it was too late.
Julian looked at the upper landing.
There was no sign of Vivian.
He could hear nothing but Elena’s breathing, the low hum of the house, and a faint ticking somewhere behind the dark wood paneling.
“She will,” he said.
Elena did not answer.
The night had begun with an argument about a letter.
At least, that was what Julian thought it had been about.
Vivian had come to the house wearing silver because she was supposed to go to a charity dinner afterward. Elena had come in gold because Julian had told her it was beautiful, and because she had been trying, lately, to believe him when he said things simply.
Julian had been late. He had been on the phone with a client in the small office near the front of the house, speaking in the clipped, patient tone he used when someone was trying to blame him for a mistake they had made themselves.
When he came out, Elena and Vivian were standing near the bottom of the staircase.
Neither had noticed him at first.
Elena held a cream-colored envelope in one hand.
Vivian had gone still.
“That’s not yours,” Vivian said.
“It was in the desk.”
“You don’t go through my things.”
“It was addressed to Julian.”
Vivian’s face changed then.
Not dramatically. Vivian never gave anyone the satisfaction of dramatic change. But her shoulders pulled back. Her fingers curled once at her sides.
“What did it say?”
Elena had looked down at the envelope.
“I didn’t read it.”
“Then give it to me.”
“No.”
Julian had stepped closer.
“What letter?”
Both women turned toward him.
Elena’s expression had softened when she saw him. Vivian’s had not.
“It’s from your mother,” Elena said.
He had stared at the envelope.
His mother had been dead for seven years.
Vivian had spoken first.
“It’s nothing.”
Julian had looked at her.
“You knew about this?”
“It’s an old note. It doesn’t matter.”
Elena’s eyes stayed on Julian’s face. “She wrote it before she died.”
Vivian’s voice sharpened. “Elena.”
“What?”
“Do not do this.”
Julian had taken the envelope from Elena.
His name was on the front in his mother’s handwriting.
The sight of it had made something in him go numb.
He had not opened it.
Not then.
He had put it in the inside pocket of his jacket and said he needed air, though he had not gone outside. He had walked to the far end of the foyer, stood beneath the double doors, and stared at his reflection in the black glass.
Behind him, Elena and Vivian had stopped speaking.
Or perhaps they had only lowered their voices.
He had assumed the silence meant the argument was over.
Now, with Elena bleeding somewhere beneath the satin and marble, he understood there were silences that did not end anything. They only waited.
“Elena,” he said.
She looked at him faintly.
“Did you read the letter?”
Her eyes shifted toward his jacket.
He had taken it off earlier. It lay folded over the bottom step near the staircase, exactly where he had dropped it when he ran to her. One black sleeve rested against the white stone. A corner of the cream envelope showed from the inner pocket.
Elena followed his gaze.
“I didn’t,” she said.
“Vivian said it was nothing.”
“She says that when something can hurt her.”
The words were quiet, but not weak.
Julian felt anger move through him, slow and hot.
“Why would it hurt her?”
Elena shut her eyes.
“Because your mother knew.”
“Knew what?”
Elena hesitated.
Above them, footsteps sounded.
Julian looked up sharply.
Vivian appeared on the upper landing again.
She had not gone to the phone.
She held nothing in her hands.
For a moment, Julian could only stare at her.
May you like
“You didn’t call,” he said.
Vivian’s face was pale now. Not the controlled pale of a person trying to hold herself together. A real one. Her eyes were wide. Her mouth trembled once before she pressed it closed.
