Chương 4
She stayed quiet.
Lucy patted Adrian’s cheek.
Once.
Twice.
Then she shoved one finger into his mouth.
Adrian jerked backward.
Evelyn laughed before she could stop herself.
He stared at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“No.”
Lucy did it again.
Adrian caught her wrist gently.
“For God’s sake.”
Evelyn laughed harder.
His expression cracked.
It was not a full laugh.
Barely a breath through his nose.
But Lucy heard something in it.
She grinned.
Adrian looked at his daughter.
Something fragile moved across his face and disappeared.
He handed Lucy back too quickly.
“I have calls.”
Then he walked out.
Evelyn watched him go.
Denise had been standing in the doorway.
She waited until his footsteps faded.
“You going to chase him?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Evelyn looked at Lucy.
“He’s scared of them.”
Denise gave her a dry look.
“You needed a week to figure that out?”
“I thought he was emotionally constipated.”
“He can be two things.”
Evelyn smiled.
Then Denise’s expression became serious.
“Don’t decide you’re going to fix him.”
“I didn’t.”
“You have the face.”
“What face?”
“The face people get when somebody else’s pain starts making them feel useful.”
Evelyn bristled.
“I’m doing my job.”
“Then do your job.”
Denise walked toward the stairs.
“Don’t make yourself responsible for a grown man’s grief. He already pays people for too much.”
That sentence stayed with Evelyn.
Partly because it was fair.
Mostly because it was uncomfortable.
Her instinct to help had always been strongest when help was least requested.
Her mother used to call it generosity.
Her brother called it meddling.
Both were probably correct.
For the next two weeks, Evelyn concentrated on the babies.
She completed pediatric CPR training.
She learned how to secure four children into a stroller without leaving anyone unattended.
She learned the logistics of leaving a wealthy Manhattan townhouse with quadruplets and returning with the same number.
She learned that strangers believed four similar babies were public property.
People photographed them without asking.
An elderly woman touched Emma’s bow in Central Park.
A teenager began filming while saying, “Oh my God, quadruplets.”
Evelyn stepped between the phone and the stroller.
“Please don’t record them.”
The teenager rolled her eyes.
“They’re babies.”
“Exactly.”
On another afternoon, a woman asked whether Evelyn had used fertility treatments.
Evelyn stared at her.
“I’m their nanny.”
The woman lowered her voice.
“Oh. Are they adopted?”
Evelyn pushed the stroller away without answering.
The world felt different when four children attracted attention merely by existing.
Adrian’s privacy rules began to seem less ridiculous.
Not all of them.
There was still a typed household document forbidding musical toys after six p.m., which Evelyn considered evidence of a disturbed mind.
But some rules came from experience rather than control.
She began asking questions.
A photographer had once waited outside the pediatrician’s office after the girls’ birth became briefly public.
A gossip site had published photographs taken through the fence of the Cole property.
Someone pretending to be a delivery driver had attempted to enter the house.
That explained the security.
It did not explain the grief.
Evelyn learned about that accidentally.
She was changing sheets in the nursery one evening when she found a small gold bracelet beneath a dresser.
It was too large for a baby.
Delicate.
Engraved inside.
A + M.
She did not need to ask who M was.
She placed it on the dresser.
Adrian found her there five minutes later.
His gaze landed on the bracelet.
He stopped.
“I found it under the dresser,” Evelyn said.
He crossed the room slowly.
For a moment he did not touch it.
“That was hers.”
Evelyn nodded.
His wife’s name had been Madeline.
She knew that much from staff.
Adrian picked up the bracelet.
“She wore it almost every day.”
His thumb moved over the engraving.
Evelyn began gathering the laundry.
“She used to sit there.”
He was looking at the rocking chair.
Evelyn stopped.
Adrian seemed surprised by his own sentence.
“She hated that chair.”
Evelyn glanced at it.
“It looks uncomfortable.”
“It cost four thousand dollars.”
“Expensive things can be uncomfortable.”
“She said the same thing.”
His mouth softened.
“She wanted to replace it with something from a furniture store in Queens. I told her we already had a chair.”
“That sounds romantic.”
He looked at Evelyn.
She shrugged.
“You opened the door.”
A quiet laugh escaped him.
It ended quickly.
He stared at the bracelet.
“She died in this room.”
Evelyn went still.
Adrian sat down in the chair his wife had hated.
The bracelet lay in his palm.
“It was after midnight. The girls were five months old. Claire had been sick all day, nothing serious. A fever. Madeline came in to check her.”
He stopped.
Evelyn waited.
“She collapsed.”
His voice changed.
Not breaking.
Flattening.
“I called 911. Tried CPR. Paramedics came.”
He looked at the rug.
“The girls were screaming.”
Evelyn felt the scene without wanting to imagine it.
Four infants crying.
A woman on the floor.
A husband pressing his hands against her chest.
Emergency workers filling the nursery.
“She had a pulmonary embolism,” Adrian said. “They said it can happen postpartum. Less likely that late, but possible.”
Evelyn did not offer condolences.
The phrase had probably been given to him by hundreds of people.
Instead she sat on the edge of the changing bench across from him.
“Is that why you don’t pick them up?”
His eyes lifted.
Anger appeared instantly.
“Excuse me?”
She almost retreated.
Then did not.
“You know everything about them. You stand in the doorway. You listen. But whenever one reaches for you, you leave.”
“That’s not your concern.”
“It becomes my concern when I’m their caregiver.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Their relationship with their father affects them.”
“I did not hire you to analyze me.”
“No.”
“Then don’t.”
Evelyn stood.
“Fine.”
She carried the laundry basket toward the door.
“Evelyn.”
She stopped.
Adrian remained seated.
His fingers had closed around the bracelet.
May you like
“I don’t avoid them.”
She looked at him.
