Chương 11
“I brought turkey,” she said. “Then I remembered pregnant people aren’t supposed to eat deli meat, so I heated it in a pan until it looked punished.”
Elena sat higher.
Lydia placed the sandwich on the tray. “The bread may be damp.”
“Thank you.”
“I also brought leggings, a sweater, and underwear that I am not going to discuss.”
“That seems wise.”
Lydia took the chair.
For several minutes Elena ate. The sandwich was warm in the center and cold at the edges. The bread had absorbed mustard into a yellow paste. It was the best thing she had tasted since the preview began.
Lydia watched her finish half.
“I’m sorry about this morning,” she said.
“You were right.”
“That doesn’t make the timing decent.”
“I signed too early.”
“I gathered that.”
“I wanted the foundation job.”
“I gathered that too.”
Elena folded the foil around the remaining sandwich.
Lydia looked at the monitor. “Do you still?”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a difficult question.”
“It should have been.”
Lydia waited.
Elena said, “I spent fifteen years becoming the person Marcus couldn’t dismiss. Then he offered me a position no woman had held at Vane House, and I told myself taking it would change the institution.”
“Would it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You would have had a larger office.”
“Yes.”
“And people beneath you.”
“Yes.”
“And your name on things.”
Elena looked down.
Lydia rubbed her thumb against a coffee stain on the chair arm. “Dad used to say you were the only one in the family who could enter a room without asking permission.”
“He said that because you knocked.”
“I knocked because houses have doors.”
“He meant confidence.”
“He meant you scared him.”
Elena looked at her.
Lydia shrugged. “You corrected his museum labels when you were twelve.”
“They were wrong.”
“He was a machinist from Newark taking his daughters to a free Sunday exhibit. He didn’t care whether the portrait was Dutch or Flemish.”
“He pretended not to care.”
“Yes. Because you cared enough for both of you.”
The room went quiet.
Their father had died seven months before Elena became pregnant. During his final weeks, he had confused Elena with their mother and repeatedly asked why she had not brought the baby. Elena had not been pregnant then. The memory had become harder to hold as her abdomen grew, as if the body could create retroactive meaning where none had existed.
Lydia reached for the foil, tore off a corner, and folded it into a narrow strip.
“You’re going to lose work over this,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Maybe all of it.”
“Maybe.”
“Can you afford that?”
“For a while.”
“What about the baby?”
“I have insurance.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Elena’s irritation rose, then faded before she could use it.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Lydia continued folding the foil until it became a tiny silver square.
“Who’s going to help when she’s born?”
“You.”
“That is not a plan.”
“I haven’t asked you.”
“You put my number on the emergency form.”
“I was unconscious enough to be honest.”
Lydia looked up.
Elena said, “I thought I had time.”
“For what?”
“To arrange things.”
“You’re seven months pregnant.”
“I know.”
“You say that like Marcus.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Lydia laughed once, then covered her mouth. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“Not entirely.”
Elena began to smile and stopped when her lip pulled against the cut.
Lydia’s expression softened.
“Does he know?” she asked.
Elena understood immediately.
“No.”
“The father?”
“He knows I’m pregnant.”
“Does he know you put me down as the emergency contact?”
“No.”
“Does he know you were attacked?”
“I assume the news has reached Seattle.”
Lydia unfolded the foil square and began again.
“You should call him.”
“He chose not to be involved.”
“That is the clean version.”
“It is the accurate version.”
“You told him he could be involved only if he moved back to New York.”
“I told him shared parenting across three thousand miles was unrealistic.”
“You gave him a condition you knew he couldn’t accept because his daughter lives there.”
Elena looked toward the window.
The father of her baby, Gabriel Ross, had been a friend before he became anything else. They met during the restoration of a hotel mural in Portland, where he worked as an architectural photographer. Their relationship grew through flights, unfinished meals, and the strange intimacy of hotel rooms occupied for three nights at a time. When Elena became pregnant, Gabriel offered to spend half each month in New York until the baby was old enough to travel. Elena called the plan unstable. He called her alternative impossible. Neither used the word afraid.
Their last conversation ended with Gabriel saying, “You don’t invite people into your life, Elena. You issue access terms.”
She had not answered.
Lydia placed the foil square on the tray.
“You should call him,” she repeated.
“He will come.”
“That sounds useful.”
“He’ll come because he feels guilty.”
“Most families are built from less elegant materials.”
At one thirty, a detective named Marisol Vega arrived to take Elena’s formal statement.
She was in her late forties, with silver strands at her temples and a small spiral notebook that looked inadequate for the number of questions she asked. She spoke plainly, never softened Marcus’s actions into confusion, and never treated Elena’s professional status as proof of credibility.
“Mr. Vane says you attacked him first,” Vega said.
Elena stared at her.
“He claims you attempted to destroy the painting after he questioned your authentication.”
“That’s absurd.”
“He has a scratch on his neck.”
Elena remembered reaching for his collar when he shoved her against the wall. One fingernail had torn.
“I scratched him.”
“Before or after he struck you?”
“After.”
“Did you touch the painting?”
“No.”
“He says you picked up a metal tool from the inspection table.”
“A thread counter.”
“What is that?”
“A magnifier.”
“Could it damage a painting?”
May you like
“Anything can damage a painting if used badly.”
“Did you raise it?”
