Chương 14
He laughed.
Then he fixed the hinge badly.
Rachel made him do it again.
They did not talk about the gala until Noah was asleep.
Edward sat at the small table drinking coffee.
Rachel wore sweatpants.
The contrast to their earliest meetings amused her.
“Do you still have the recording?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you listen to it?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“I listened to mine too many times.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Your copy?”
“Security archive.”
“What were you listening for?”
Edward stared into his coffee.
“The moment I should have done something differently.”
Rachel understood.
“Did you find it?”
“Several hundred.”
She smiled faintly.
Edward looked toward Noah’s closed bedroom door.
“Derek asked whether he can come to the mansion for Thanksgiving.”
Rachel raised an eyebrow.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because you may also be invited.”
“By who?”
“Me.”
“No.”
“That was fast.”
“I’m learning.”
He smiled.
“Fair.”
Rachel studied him.
“Will you let Derek go?”
“Yes.”
“After everything?”
“It’s a house.”
Rachel waited.
Edward continued.
“I spent too long using access as love and property as authority. I’m trying not to.”
Rachel looked at the old man across from her.
“Careful. You’re becoming tolerable.”
“I’ll correct it.”
The final divorce agreement was completed almost a year after the gala.
There were no triumphant courthouse steps.
No crowd.
No speech.
Rachel sat in Karen’s office with a paper cup of tea while lawyers completed what months of conflict had already made true.
Financial arrangements.
Parenting time.
Decision-making responsibilities.
Property.
Insurance.
Accounts.
Procedures for disagreements.
The architecture of a broken marriage.
Derek joined remotely from his attorney’s office.
At the end, after everyone else stopped speaking, he said, “Rachel?”
Karen looked at her.
Rachel nodded.
Derek’s face on the screen looked older than thirty-eight.
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel waited.
He did not add qualifications.
No because.
No but.
No explanation involving stress, Edward, Margaret, work, sleep, fatherhood, or fear.
“I believed taking care of you meant I got to decide what happened,” he said. “I believed paying for things made them mine. I believed being afraid of losing you gave me the right to make it harder for you to leave.”
Rachel’s throat tightened.
Derek looked down.
“I don’t expect that to repair anything.”
It did not.
That was why she believed him.
Rachel said, “I hope you remember that when Noah is old enough to tell you no.”
Derek closed his eyes.
Then nodded.
“I will.”
Rachel signed the final documents.
Outside the office, she stood on the sidewalk in afternoon sunlight.
Karen shook her hand.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Karen nodded.
“Reasonable.”
Rachel laughed.
Then walked three blocks to the museum.
She had been offered a permanent position.
Not her old title.
A different one.
Collections manager.
Less glamorous than Derek’s world.
More hers.
At five thirty she picked up Noah from daycare.
He was fifteen months old, furious about shoes, and had recently learned the word no.
He used it with enthusiasm.
“No.”
“You need shoes.”
“No.”
“We’re going outside.”
“No.”
Rachel sat on the tiny daycare bench and tried to put on his left sneaker.
Noah kicked.
The shoe flew under a cubby.
Rachel stared at him.
He stared back.
A teacher turned away to hide a smile.
Rachel started laughing.
Noah laughed too, though he had no idea why.
She retrieved the shoe.
“Your father is going to enjoy this phase.”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
That weekend Derek arrived to pick him up.
He crouched in the apartment hallway.
“Shoes, buddy.”
“No.”
Derek looked at Rachel.
She folded her arms.
“Good luck.”
For ten minutes Derek negotiated with a toddler.
He offered choices.
Noah rejected all of them.
Derek’s jaw tightened once.
Rachel saw it.
He stopped.
Breathed.
Sat on the floor.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re not ready.”
Noah stared.
Derek waited.
Two minutes later Noah brought him the shoe.
Rachel looked away because tears had suddenly filled her eyes.
Not forgiveness.
Not reconciliation.
Something smaller.
Evidence of work.
Derek fastened the shoe.
At the elevator he turned.
“Sunday at five.”
“Five.”
The doors closed.
Rachel stood in the hallway listening to the elevator descend.
No fear.
Just an elevator.
The second anniversary of the gala arrived without anyone mentioning it.
Rachel remembered only because the museum received an invitation to the Hayes Family Foundation Winter Arts Benefit.
The event would be held at a downtown hotel.
Not the mansion.
Janice left the invitation on Rachel’s desk.
“You going?”
Rachel stared at it.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
That evening she called Edward.
“Did you move the gala because of me?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“I sold the house.”
Rachel sat upright.
“You what?”
“Closed last month.”
“You sold it?”
“Yes.”
“To who?”
“A couple with four children and three dogs. Their architect is already destroying the west wing.”
Rachel laughed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I assumed property transactions were no longer central to your emotional life.”
“Apparently they are.”
Edward chuckled.
Rachel looked around her apartment.
The crooked cabinet had remained fixed.
“Does Derek know?”
“Yes.”
“How did he take it?”
“Badly.”
“Margaret?”
“Worse.”
Rachel smiled.
“And you?”
Edward was quiet.
“I walked through it once after everything was removed.”
Rachel waited.
“There was a mark on the ballroom floor where the champagne bucket fell.”
Her chest tightened.
“I didn’t know marble could stain.”
“Neither did I.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Rachel smiled.
“That’s growth.”
“I was told the new owners could have it polished.”
A few days later Rachel accepted the gala invitation.
She almost changed her mind six times.
She wore a dark green dress she bought herself.
No burgundy velvet.
No borrowed diamonds.
The old leather watch was still broken, so she wore nothing on her wrist.
Lena came as her guest.
At the hotel entrance Lena looked at the chandeliers and said, “These people really hate normal ceilings.”
Rachel laughed.
Inside, guests talked too loudly.
Glasses clinked.
A jazz trio played near the windows.
May you like
Someone complained about parking.
Someone else discussed college applications.
