Chương 6
Her phone rang on the kitchen counter.
The sound was absurdly loud.
Noah looked at her.
“Don’t change it.”
Emily nodded.
“I won’t.”
Richard left last.
He paused at the threshold.
For one strange moment, he and Emily were alone in the old shape of their relationship: father and daughter, both too proud, both frightened, both waiting for the other person to make the first human move.
Richard looked at the brass access card in her hand.
“This place doesn’t make you right.”
Emily looked around the penthouse.
“No.”
He seemed surprised again.
“It just means I can afford this place.”
The elevator doors began to close.
Richard put out a hand, stopping them.
“Emily.”
She waited.
“I did not mean for your life to become what it became.”
It was not an apology.
That made it worse.
Emily’s voice stayed quiet.
“You meant for me to take the blame.”
His hand dropped.
The doors closed.
The elevator descended.
Emily stood there long after the numbers above the door went dark.
David began collecting his folders.
Margaret remained by the windows.
“You all right?” he asked Emily.
“No.”
“Good answer.”
She looked at him.
He shrugged.
“You pay me for legal advice, not emotional optimism.”
Margaret said, “I pay you.”
“Then Emily gets the emotional optimism for free.”
Emily sat on the arm of the sofa where Richard had been.
Sophie had left two crumpled tissues on the coffee table.
Emily gathered them and threw them away.
Then she stood in the kitchen holding the tissue box for no reason.
Margaret watched her.
“I’m sorry.”
Emily put the box down.
“Not tonight.”
Margaret nodded.
“All right.”
“I mean it.”
“I heard you.”
“I can’t forgive six years in one evening because Dad got caught.”
“I know.”
“And I’m angry at you.”
“You should be.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“I didn’t think it would.”
Emily looked at her grandmother.
Margaret’s eyes were red.
“I was scared of losing my son,” Margaret said.
“You lost me instead.”
“Yes.”
The answer had no defense in it.
That hurt more than an excuse would have.
Emily walked to the window.
Below them, cars moved through the city in patient lines.
“Did you really know?”
“I suspected.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Did you think I stole it?”
Margaret took time before answering.
“For about two days.”
Emily turned.
Margaret looked ashamed.
“Then I found a statement in Richard’s office. Hawthorne Plaza. The dates bothered me.”
“You never told anyone?”
“I asked him.”
“What did he say?”
“That you had used Eastbridge because you were trying to hide where the money went.”
“And you believed that?”
“I believed enough of it to remain confused.”
Emily laughed once without humor.
“That’s convenient.”
“Yes.”
Margaret looked down.
“Confusion can be very convenient when the truth requires you to do something unpleasant.”
Emily had no answer to that.
After David and Margaret left, the penthouse felt too large.
Emily locked the door, then checked it twice.
She went to the bedroom.
Changed out of the fitted black dress.
Put on gray sweatpants and an old University of Cincinnati T-shirt.
Then she stood in front of the bathroom mirror and removed her makeup with the same drugstore wipes she had used when she was twenty-six and broke.
Her reflection looked smaller without the dress.
Less composed.
She brushed her teeth.
Halfway through, she started crying.
Not dramatically.
No collapse.
No sound.
Tears simply ran down her face while toothpaste foam gathered stupidly at the corner of her mouth.
She looked at herself and almost laughed.
This was what six years had led to.
Not the perfect confrontation.
Mint toothpaste.
Swollen eyes.
A family staying in three different places.
Her father possibly facing a civil case.
Her mother discovering she might not understand her own mortgage.
Her nephew asking her not to disappear again.
Emily rinsed her mouth.
Then her phone vibrated.
A message from Noah.
You awake?
She stared at it.
Typed yes.
Deleted it.
Typed: Unfortunately.
Three dots appeared.
He wrote: Dad’s not here.
Emily sat on the closed toilet lid.
Where is he?
Don’t know. Mom told him not to come to the hotel.
Is your mom okay?
No.
A pause.
Then:
Are you?
Emily looked at the question for a long time.
No, she wrote.
Noah answered almost immediately.
Okay.
She understood what he meant.
He was relieved she had not lied.
Two minutes later he sent another message.
Sophie says your house smells like a fancy candle store.
Emily looked toward the hallway.
There was exactly one candle in the living room.
She wrote: Tell Sophie that’s insulting.
Noah replied with a laughing emoji.
Emily went to bed at 1:17 a.m.
She did not sleep until almost four.
At nine the next morning, Richard called.
She let it ring.
He called again.
She let that ring too.
Then David called.
She answered.
“Your father contacted me.”
“What did he want?”
“To know whether we intend to report him to law enforcement.”
Emily sat up.
“What did you say?”
“That I don’t discuss legal strategy with potential adverse parties before breakfast.”
“Do you?”
“Usually not after breakfast either.”
Emily rubbed her eyes.
“What happens now?”
“That depends partly on Margaret.”
“And partly?”
“You.”
Emily got out of bed.
“I hate that answer.”
“Most useful answers are annoying.”
“I’m going to make coffee.”
“That seems legally permissible.”
Emily hung up.
While the coffee brewed, she listened to a voicemail Richard had left.
His voice was controlled.
“Emily, we need to talk without attorneys turning this into something it doesn’t need to become. There are things you don’t understand about Hawthorne and about what happened afterward. Call me.”
She deleted it.
Then recovered it from deleted messages.
Then became irritated with herself.
She did not need the voicemail as evidence.
She simply was not ready to erase his voice.
At ten, Diane called.
May you like
Emily stared at her mother’s name.
It had been added to her contacts only the night before.
