Chương 6
“We.”
“My firm.”
“You keep changing pronouns depending on whether you want me responsible.”
His mouth closed.
Emma opened the car door.
“Did you plan to leave me?”
Adrian went still.
“Vanessa showed me the messages.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
“Did you?”
“I didn’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I thought about it.”
“After the baby.”
He looked at the ground.
Emma waited.
“Yes.”
A car moved through the hospital driveway behind them.
Someone honked.
Neither of them moved.
Emma’s voice came quieter.
“Were you going to ask me for access to the trust before you left me or after?”
Adrian looked up.
She saw the answer before he gave it.
“Before.”
Emma nodded.
She got into the car.
He touched the top edge of the open door.
Not her.
Just the door.
“I never thought of it as stealing.”
Emma looked at his hand.
“That may be the worst thing you’ve said yet.”
She pulled the door closed.
For the first forty minutes back to Denver, Emma watched strip malls, wet highway barriers, gas stations, and early commuters move past the windows.
She did not cry.
Then they passed a man standing beside a broken-down pickup truck, holding an umbrella over a little girl in a pink backpack.
Emma began crying so suddenly she startled herself.
The driver glanced at the mirror.
He did not say anything.
She was grateful.
Her sister Claire opened the door to Emma’s house wearing pajama pants and one of Emma’s old college sweatshirts.
Rachel had called her.
Emma knew before Claire said anything.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
Claire hugged her carefully around the belly.
Emma stood inside the entryway and cried into her sister’s shoulder for exactly thirty seconds.
Then she pulled away.
“I need a shower.”
“Okay.”
“And coffee.”
“You’re allowed one?”
“One.”
“Great. I make coffee.”
Emma walked upstairs.
The house looked the same.
That felt offensive.
Adrian’s shoes were under the bench.
His jacket hung in the closet.
A package addressed to him sat on the console table.
The nursery door was open.
Inside, the crib stood against the wall.
Adrian had fixed it after assembling it wrong.
Emma remembered sitting on the floor reading instructions while he argued that Swedish furniture diagrams were a form of psychological warfare.
She closed the door.
In the shower, she noticed a bruise forming along the heel of her right hand.
From the slap.
She stared at it under the water.
She was not proud of hitting him.
That surprised her.
She had expected satisfaction.
There was none.
Only a dull awareness that she had crossed a line too, even if the two actions were not equal.
When she came downstairs, Claire had coffee waiting.
“You want me to say horrible things about him?”
“Not yet.”
“I have material ready.”
“I know.”
Claire pushed a mug toward her.
Emma sat.
For several minutes they said nothing.
Claire opened a package of crackers, ate two, then made a face.
“These are awful.”
“I ate those on the train.”
“Why?”
“Pregnancy apparently turns stale carbohydrates into medicine.”
Claire put the package away.
Then she said, “Rachel told me not to ask about money.”
“Rachel is becoming very controlling.”
“She sounded terrified.”
That got Emma’s attention.
“Of Adrian?”
“Of you doing something generous and stupid.”
Emma almost smiled.
That was fair.
At ten, Rachel arrived with a laptop and two legal pads.
She did not wear a suit. Emma had seen her without one only twice.
“First,” Rachel said, sitting at the kitchen table, “you do nothing today.”
“You came here to tell me that?”
“I came here to stop you from doing things.”
Claire pointed at Rachel.
“I like her.”
Rachel ignored her.
“Second, Marshwell has frozen any change in administrative authority pending direct confirmation from you.”
“Can they freeze it?”
“They’re not freezing your money. They’re declining to process new delegations while there is a documented dispute.”
“Good.”
“Third, there is no evidence Adrian accessed trust assets.”
Emma let out a breath she had not known she was holding.
Rachel watched her.
“That matters.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean legally and morally. Planning to ask for authority is not the same as taking money.”
“He lied.”
“Yes.”
“He used the expected access to reassure people.”
“Possibly. We need the exact representations.”
“He drafted paperwork.”
“Yes.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“I am not minimizing this. I’m keeping the categories straight because you will need to.”
Emma looked at the coffee.
She disliked Rachel for three seconds.
Then the feeling passed.
“What happens now?”
“We determine what he told lenders and investors. We determine whether your name appears in anything. We determine whether he made representations on your behalf.”
“And the marriage?”
Rachel’s expression softened.
“That is not my department.”
Claire raised her hand.
“I volunteer.”
Emma looked at both of them.
Despite everything, a laugh escaped her.
This one did not hurt.
The next two weeks moved strangely.
Some hours were filled with lawyers, accountants, calls, medical appointments, and questions Emma had never imagined needing to ask.
Other hours contained nothing.
She sat on the nursery floor one afternoon sorting baby clothes by size and became furious because Claire had folded a six-month sleeper into the newborn pile.
“You know babies grow, right?”
Claire stared at her.
“Yes.”
“Well, apparently not.”
Claire looked at the sleeper, then at Emma.
“This is about Adrian.”
“I know what it’s about.”
“Good.”
Emma threw the sleeper into the correct pile.
Claire picked it up and folded it again.
“You fold badly when you’re angry.”
“I fold badly all the time.”
“That’s true.”
The ordinary stupidity of the argument saved them.
Adrian moved into a hotel.
He texted Emma every morning asking how she and the baby were.
For the first week, Emma did not reply.
On the eighth day she wrote:
Baby is fine.
He responded:
Thank you.
No apology.
No plea.
May you like
That restraint made her angrier than if he had begged.
Vanessa sent Rachel a larger set of messages.
