Chương 6
Thomas confronted Daniel again.
Daniel said he had told Emily.
Thomas believed him.
Years later, during the divorce, Thomas discovered he had not.
Emily lowered the paper.
“You told him you told me.”
Daniel’s eyes were wet now.
Not crying.
Something smaller and perhaps worse.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of what you’d do.”
“What would I do?”
“Exactly this.”
Emily laughed.
The sound frightened even her.
Rachel said, “Emily.”
She put the paper down.
Daniel sat.
“I was twenty-nine,” he said.
“You were a father.”
“I know.”
“No. You know now because you’re sitting here. You didn’t know then.”
“That’s not fair.”
She stared at him.
Daniel looked away first.
“I was terrified,” he said. “My mother’s brother died at thirty-eight. My grandfather died at forty-one. Then the test came back and suddenly I was walking around waiting for my heart to kill me.”
Emily said nothing.
“I couldn’t sleep. I was checking my pulse constantly. Every time I climbed stairs, I wondered if I was short of breath. Every time Lily cried, I thought—”
He stopped.
His fingers curled around the edge of the table.
“I thought I gave it to her.”
Emily’s anger remained.
But another feeling entered beside it.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition.
Daniel had been afraid.
He had been selfish with that fear, as he was selfish with most things. He had converted terror into secrecy and then made everyone else pay the cost.
But the terror had been real.
That made it harder.
Rachel asked, “Have you had clinical follow-up?”
Daniel nodded.
“Annually.”
“And?”
“No evidence of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy so far.”
“Does Vanessa know?”
Daniel looked at her.
“No.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Of course.
Of course she didn’t.
“Daniel.”
“I was going to tell her.”
Emily looked at Rachel.
Rachel looked down at her legal pad, suddenly very interested in her handwriting.
Emily sat.
“Does anyone in your life know anything before it becomes an emergency?”
Daniel flinched.
For once, he had no answer.
Emily folded the memorandum.
“We’re calling Lily’s pediatrician.”
“I agree.”
“No. Listen carefully. I’m not asking whether you agree.”
His jaw tightened.
There he was.
The man she knew.
Then, just as quickly, the resistance went out of him.
“Okay.”
“And you are sending every medical record related to this to Rachel today.”
“Okay.”
“And you’re going to tell Vanessa.”
“That has nothing to do with Lily.”
“No. It has to do with you.”
His eyes hardened.
“You don’t get a vote in my marriage.”
“I’m not asking for one.”
“Then stay out of it.”
Emily put Thomas’s letter into the envelope.
“I intend to.”
She stood.
Daniel remained seated.
“What about the hotel?”
“What about it?”
“You humiliated me in front of three hundred people.”
Emily looked at him.
“Vanessa hit me.”
“You walked into my wedding and announced that my daughter owns my family’s hotel.”
“You announced it was yours.”
“Because it is.”
“No, Daniel. It isn’t.”
He stood.
“My grandfather built that company.”
“And your father spent his final year trying to stop you from losing it.”
“That’s what he told you?”
“That’s what the balance sheet told me.”
“You think because you learned to read distressed debt you understand my family?”
Emily felt the familiar desire to hurt him.
She knew exactly where to put the knife.
Your father trusted me more than you.
The sentence rose into her mouth.
She swallowed it.
Daniel noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, say it.”
“I’m done saying things just because I know they’ll hurt you.”
He stared at her.
For a moment he looked more offended by that than he would have been by the insult.
Emily picked up her bag.
“Send the records.”
She left.
Lily’s pediatrician referred them to pediatric cardiology.
The first available appointment was not that afternoon.
It was not the next morning.
It was nine days later.
Emily discovered that fear did not make medical scheduling departments more impressed by you.
She called twice.
Rachel called once.
Daniel tried to call someone on the hospital board.
Emily told him to stop.
“This is exactly what you always do.”
“I’m trying to get our daughter seen.”
“So am I.”
“I can get her seen tomorrow.”
“Because you know somebody.”
“Yes.”
“And what happens to the kid whose appointment she takes?”
Daniel stared at her.
They were standing outside Lily’s school.
Parents moved around them with backpacks and iced coffees.
“You cannot possibly be making this into an ethical argument.”
“I’m making it into a stop-trying-to-control-every-system argument.”
“My daughter might have a heart condition.”
“Our daughter.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Fine.”
A mother passing them smiled uncertainly.
Emily recognized her but could not remember her name.
The woman recognized Daniel.
Everyone recognized Daniel now.
The wedding video had accumulated several million views.
Different clips created different stories.
One made Emily look triumphant.
One made Vanessa look unstable.
One cut off before the slap and made Marcus appear to grab Vanessa without cause.
A popular account identified Lily by name.
Emily’s employer called.
Not to fire her.
That would almost have been simpler.
The managing partner asked whether Emily had complied with conflict procedures in the hotel transaction.
“Yes.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Then came the pause.
“But?”
“But this is ugly.”
“I noticed.”
“We have investors asking whether the transaction was motivated by a domestic dispute.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I know that.”
“Do they?”
“That’s why I’m calling.”
Emily spent the next week proving facts she had already documented.
Emails.
Committee minutes.
Recusal records.
Independent valuations.
The investment case.
Every precaution she had taken because Daniel was her former husband now became evidence that she had anticipated exactly this accusation.
It saved her job.
It did not save her reputation from becoming entertainment.
Someone found old photographs from her marriage.
Someone else found the divorce filing.
A gossip site published photographs of Vanessa leaving the hotel alone at three in the morning.
Emily stopped reading.
May you like
Then she started again.
Then she hated herself for starting again.
