Chương 9
Maxwell stepped closer to the table.
“Nora called my office before she died.”
“I know.”
“You heard the call?”
“Gordon summarized it.”
“And you did nothing.”
“What should I have done? Invited a stranger into your life because she repeated an old allegation?”
“She was my daughter.”
“She was Elizabeth’s daughter. Biologically, yes, she appears to have been yours as well.”
“Appears?”
“Do not demand that I perform emotion for you.”
He laughed once, without humor.
“This is emotion?”
“This is control.”
Evelyn stood. She was much shorter than he was, but she had never seemed small to him.
“You are grieving an idea,” she said. “You did not raise Nora. You did not know her. You are allowing guilt to reorganize your life because guilt feels cleaner than uncertainty.”
“You made the uncertainty.”
“I made a decision.”
“For me.”
“You were incapable of making one.”
“I was nineteen, not unconscious.”
“You were drunk half the summer.”
“After my father collapsed.”
“You failed two courses.”
“I was at the hospital.”
“You told me you wanted to disappear.”
“I meant from you.”
Something moved across Evelyn’s face, gone before he could name it.
She walked to the photograph wall and straightened a frame that was already level.
“Your father was dying,” she said. “The banks were circling. The board believed I was a temporary widow filling a chair until they could remove me. You were sleeping in an apartment above a bakery with a girl who thought love was a financial plan.”
“Elizabeth never asked me for money.”
“She would have.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I knew poverty. Better than either of you.”
Maxwell had heard fragments of his mother’s childhood: a rented room in Spokane, a father who gambled away grocery money, a mother who altered dresses for wealthy women and taught Evelyn never to let customers see her hands shake.
Evelyn touched the silver frame containing Maxwell’s graduation photograph.
“I spent my life making sure no one could decide whether we ate,” she said. “Then your father nearly destroyed everything because he was too proud to admit he was ill. You wanted to walk away. Elizabeth was pregnant. Twenty thousand employees were waiting for a frightened boy to become useful.”
“So you erased her.”
“I contained a crisis.”
“She had a name.”
“Do not lecture me as if you have never chosen numbers over people.”
Maxwell stopped.
She turned.
“How many factories have you closed?”
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“How many families did you tell yourself would survive because the company survived? How many workers became necessary losses in your reports?”
He felt the accuracy of the blow and hated her for delivering it.
“You taught me that.”
“No. I taught you to choose. You became very good at it.”
The room remained quiet.
Maxwell looked at the photographs again. His life had been edited into silver rectangles: schools, ceremonies, acquisitions, marriages of friends, funerals, charity dinners. The absence of Nora was invisible unless one knew to look for it.
“You’re resigning from the family office board,” he said.
Evelyn smiled faintly.
“You cannot remove me.”
“I can call a vote.”
“You will lose.”
“Then everyone can vote in public.”
Her smile disappeared.
“You are threatening the family to impress two children who do not know you.”
“No. I’m telling you there will be consequences.”
“There already are. Three directors have requested an emergency session. They are concerned about your judgment.”
“My judgment?”
“You abandoned negotiations, canceled meetings, and exposed the company to a personal scandal.”
“I learned I had a daughter.”
“You learned a woman you once slept with gave birth.”
Maxwell crossed the room before he was aware of moving.
He stopped several feet from her.
Evelyn did not step back, but the color left her face.
“Do not speak about Elizabeth that way again.”
For the first time, his mother looked old.
Not weak. Not sorry. Simply old.
“You think anger makes you different from me,” she said.
“No.”
His hands were shaking.
“I think what I do next might.”
The emergency board meeting was scheduled for Friday.
Before it took place, Maxwell’s temporary guardianship petition suffered a serious setback.
The children’s court-appointed representative filed a report expressing concern that Maxwell’s public conflict with his mother and the media attention surrounding his family could destabilize the girls further. The report did not accuse him of wrongdoing. It recommended continued placement with the Harrisons and a gradual increase in supervised visits only after a security plan was approved.
Maxwell read the report in his office while three television networks requested interviews.
“This is because of the leak,” he said.
Rebekah sat across from him.
“It is because of the consequences of the leak.”
“My mother caused it.”
“The children experienced it.”
“So she wins.”
Rebekah closed the folder.
“This is not a contest between you and your mother.”
“It is to her.”
“Then stop letting her choose the rules.”
Maxwell looked toward Adrian, who stood near the door.
“What would you have me do?”
Rebekah’s voice softened only slightly.
“Decide whether you want to protect your claim or build a relationship.”
“They’re the same.”
“No. A claim is about what you are owed.”
“I’m not owed anything.”
“Then prove it.”
The next supervised visit occurred by video.
Lily appeared first, too close to the camera. One of her eyes filled most of the screen.
“Simone says back up,” she announced.
Lucy pulled her away.
The girls sat on a couch in the secure house. The teddy bear rested between them.
Maxwell sat alone at his kitchen table. He had removed his jacket and tie because Lily had once said he looked like he was always going to a funeral.
“Are reporters still there?” he asked.
“No,” Lucy said.
“Security says the street is clear.”
“You have people watching the street?”
“Yes.”
“That’s creepy.”
“It can be.”
Lily leaned toward the screen.
“Do they have binoculars?”
“Probably.”
May you like
“Can I use them?”
“No,” Lucy and Maxwell said together.
