Chương 8
Emma considered this.
“That happens?”
“Yes.”
“To grown-ups?”
“All the time.”
She nodded slowly.
Then she said, “I still like her.”
Nathan had no answer to that.
The next three days were quiet in all the wrong ways.
Vale Meridian’s negotiations with Arden stalled completely.
The Chicago landlord refused the first request for an extension.
One lender declined after reviewing the company’s short-term cash position.
The second offered terms Nathan described to Sam as “legalized organ harvesting.”
Sam replied that Nathan had signed worse leases in his twenties.
Nathan canceled two dinners, one television interview about freight modernization, and a weekend trip.
He stayed home.
At first, he treated staying home as a task.
He answered emails from the kitchen while Emma did homework.
He took calls on the balcony while she practiced violin.
He watched half of a movie with her while reviewing cash forecasts on his phone.
On Thursday night Emma paused the movie.
“You’re not watching.”
“I am.”
“What just happened?”
Nathan looked at the screen.
A cartoon fox was wearing a crown.
“The fox became king.”
Emma stared at him.
“The fox is a girl.”
Nathan put the phone face down.
“Okay.”
“And she stole the crown.”
“Right.”
“You’re really bad at movies.”
“I am.”
Emma restarted it.
Nathan watched the rest.
He missed two calls.
Nothing collapsed.
That disturbed him more than he wanted to admit.
On Friday, the school counselor called.
Emma had cried after another child spilled a bottle of water during lunch.
“She wasn’t hurt,” the counselor explained. “She just became very upset.”
Nathan sat in his office with the door closed.
“What did she say?”
“She asked the other child if he was going to get in trouble.”
Nathan looked at his desk.
There was a water ring beside his coffee.
He rubbed it with his thumb.
“Did she tell you why?”
“Only that someone got angry about water.”
Nathan told the counselor enough.
Not everything.
The counselor was quiet.
“Children sometimes connect fear to small sensory details.”
Nathan hated the word sometimes.
It gave him nothing to fix.
“What should I do?”
“Keep things predictable. Let her talk without questioning her too hard. Remind her clearly what happened was not her responsibility.”
“I’ve done that.”
“Then keep doing it.”
Nathan’s irritation rose.
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
“That feels inadequate.”
“Most parenting does.”
He almost laughed.
The counselor added, “Mr. Vale, she does not need you to erase the memory.”
Nathan went still.
“She needs to learn the memory can exist without controlling what happens next.”
After the call, Nathan stared at the water ring on the desk.
He did not wipe it away.
That afternoon Celeste requested a meeting through counsel.
Nathan refused.
She requested again.
This time the message included no business language.
Twenty minutes. Neutral location. No attorneys unless you prefer them.
Nathan forwarded it to his lawyer.
The lawyer wrote back:
You are not obligated to meet her.
Nathan knew that.
He also knew he wanted to.
That bothered him.
He waited until Emma came home.
Nora had picked her up from school.
Nora entered Nathan’s apartment carrying two grocery bags and resentment.
“You look terrible.”
“Nice to see you too.”
“You need vegetables.”
“I have vegetables.”
“You have capers.”
“They’re green.”
Nora put the bags on the counter.
She had their father’s sharp nose and their mother’s inability to enter a house without opening cabinets.
Emma disappeared into her room.
Nora lowered her voice.
“Celeste contacted me.”
Nathan stared at her.
“What?”
“Yesterday.”
“How does she have your number?”
“You gave it to her last Christmas when Mom was in the hospital.”
Nathan had forgotten.
“What did she say?”
“She wanted me to help her explain.”
“Explain what?”
Nora opened the refrigerator and frowned at it.
“That she didn’t know Emma was your daughter.”
Nathan felt anger tighten his neck.
Nora shut the refrigerator.
“I said that was the problem.”
He looked at her.
“She asked whether Emma has a history of exaggerating.”
Nathan went still.
“What did you say?”
“I said if she ever contacted me about Emma again, I’d forward everything to your attorney.”
Nathan breathed through his nose.
Nora watched him.
“I also said something about a broomstick.”
“Nora.”
“It was not my best work.”
Despite himself, he smiled.
Then he stopped.
“I’m thinking of meeting Celeste.”
Nora’s face hardened.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Nathan leaned against the counter.
“I want to hear what she says.”
“You heard what she said.”
“I want to hear it when she isn’t standing in a terminal.”
Nora folded her arms.
“You want her to make it make sense.”
Nathan looked at his sister.
There it was.
The thing he had not admitted.
“Yes.”
“She won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. I know you.”
Nathan almost laughed.
“You used that line already.”
“It keeps being useful.”
He opened one of the grocery bags.
Carrots. Apples. Pasta. Bread.
Ordinary things.
Nora said, “You liked her.”
“I did.”
“You don’t want to discover you were stupid.”
Nathan set the bread down.
“Everyone keeps telling me what I don’t want to discover.”
“That’s because you charge through life like nobody else can read you.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is painfully true.”
Emma appeared in the hallway.
“Can we order pizza?”
Nora looked at the groceries.
“I just bought food.”
Emma shrugged.
“I like pizza.”
Nora looked at Nathan.
“This is why she’s my favorite.”
They ordered pizza.
Nathan met Celeste the next morning.
The location was a hotel coffee shop in Midtown chosen by their lawyers precisely because it was public enough to discourage a scene and private enough to avoid one.
Celeste arrived first.
She wore a dark gray suit.
No diamonds.
No satin.
No champagne.
Nathan noticed every deliberate absence.
He hated that he could still read her clothes.
She stood when he approached.
He did not hug her.
They sat.
For almost a minute neither spoke.
May you like
A waiter brought coffee.
Celeste added cream, though Nathan had never seen her take cream before.
