Part 5
She and Nora had not been close lately. Adrian disliked Nora’s bluntness. Eleanor had allowed distance to grow because distance was easier than explaining why every invitation became complicated. Nora used to run a small catering company and now managed events for a museum. She had a guest room full of fabric samples and no patience for powerful men who confused volume with truth.
“Can you call her?” Priya asked.
Eleanor looked at the time. 12:17 a.m.
Nora answered on the second ring, voice rough with sleep. “Ellie?”
Eleanor had not been called Ellie in months. She almost broke at the sound.
“I need somewhere to take Lily tonight.”
The sleep left Nora’s voice. “Are you hurt?”
“Lily is.”
“What hospital?”
Eleanor told her.
“I’m leaving now.”
“Nora, you don’t have to—”
“Don’t do that polite thing. I’m leaving now.”
The line went dead.
Eleanor sat with the phone in her lap. Lily, exhausted after the stitches, leaned against the raised pillow and watched her.
“Is Nora mad?”
“At me? Maybe a little.”
“Why?”
“Because I stopped calling her.”
“Why?”
Eleanor glanced toward the hallway. A nurse laughed softly at something behind the desk. A machine beeped in another room.
“Because she asked questions I didn’t want to answer.”
Lily considered that. “Like doctors?”
“Yes,” Eleanor said. “Like doctors.”
Nora arrived wearing jeans under a wool coat, her hair shoved into a clip, one earring missing. She took one look at Lily and covered her mouth. Then she crossed the room and knelt by the bed.
“Hi, peanut.”
Lily gave a tiny smile. “I’m not a peanut anymore.”
“You’re right. Sorry. Hi, cashew.”
Despite everything, Lily laughed once. It turned into a wince.
Nora looked at Eleanor then. The anger in her eyes was fierce, but she did not spend it in front of the child.
“I brought clothes,” she said. “For both of you. They’re ugly. Don’t complain.”
Eleanor looked down at the bloodstained gown. “I won’t.”
In the bathroom, she changed into Nora’s sweatshirt and soft pants. The gown lay collapsed on the tile like a dead version of herself. She tried to fold it, then stopped. Blood had dried stiff along the bodice. Her hands began shaking again.
Nora opened the door a crack. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Good. That’s a normal answer.”
Eleanor laughed, a horrible little sound that became crying. Nora stepped in and shut the door behind her. She did not hug Eleanor right away. That was one of the reasons Eleanor loved her. Nora waited until Eleanor reached for her, then held on hard.
“I saw a post,” Nora said into her shoulder. “Someone put up a blurry clip and deleted it. People are talking.”
“Already?”
“It’s midnight and rich people are bored. Of course already.”
Eleanor pulled back. “What did it show?”
“Enough to know Adrian’s team is going to work very hard tomorrow.”
Eleanor wiped her face with the back of her hand. “His team.”
“And yours?”
“I don’t have one.”
Nora looked at her, not unkindly. “Then we build one before breakfast.”
Eleanor almost said she could not. She almost listed practical problems: accounts, school, the house, Adrian’s lawyers, the foundation, his mother, Lily’s ballet bag still in the mudroom. Instead she looked at the blood on the gown.
“Okay,” she said.
The word felt flimsy. It held anyway.
At 2:04 a.m., Officer Ruiz returned to the hospital with a victim services card and more questions. Eleanor answered while Lily slept. Nora sat in the corner drinking vending machine coffee and listening with the bleak focus of someone memorizing every word.
Had Adrian threatened Lily before? Had he threatened Eleanor? Had there been witnesses to tonight’s event? Did Eleanor know of any videos? Did Adrian have access to the home now? Were there firearms in the house?
“No firearms,” Eleanor said.
Nora made a sound.
Eleanor looked at her.
“What?”
“His father’s shotgun. The one in the study display case.”
“It’s antique.”
“It’s a gun.”
“I don’t know if it works.”
Officer Ruiz wrote it down.
Eleanor felt stupid. Not because she had missed a fact, but because she had edited danger into decor.
By three, Lily was discharged with instructions: watch for vomiting, confusion, unusual sleepiness, worsening headache, fever, redness around the stitches. Eleanor placed the papers carefully in her bag, then checked twice to make sure she had them. She could not control much, so the papers became important.
Outside, cold air hit her face. Nora had parked illegally near the entrance. A ticket tucked beneath her windshield wiper fluttered in the wind.
“You got a ticket,” Eleanor said.
Nora glanced at it. “Good. I was worried the night would be too cheap.”
Lily, half-asleep in Eleanor’s arms, whispered, “That was funny.”
Nora bowed slightly. “Thank you. I work hard.”
At Nora’s apartment, the guest room smelled faintly of lavender detergent and cardboard. Bolts of fabric leaned against one wall. A stack of museum catalogs served as a bedside table. Lily slept in the middle of the bed with Eleanor curled around her, afraid to close her eyes and afraid not to.
At dawn, Eleanor woke to Lily touching the bandage at her temple.
“Don’t pick,” Eleanor murmured.
“I’m checking if it’s still there.”
“It is.”
Lily looked at her. In the gray morning light, her face seemed younger than seven. “Are we hiding?”
Eleanor wanted to say no. The better answer was harder.
“For now, we’re staying somewhere safe while I figure things out.”
“Is that hiding?”
“A little.”
“Will Daddy say I lied?”
Eleanor pushed herself up on one elbow.
“Did you?”
Lily shook her head quickly.
“Then he can say it, but it won’t make it true.”
Lily thought about this. “Sometimes when he says things, people act like they’re true.”
There it was. The child’s plain summary of power.
Eleanor brushed hair away from Lily’s forehead, careful of the bandage. “I know.”
“Will you?”
“Act like it’s true?”
Lily nodded.
May you like
“No.”
The answer frightened Eleanor because now she had to become the kind of person who could keep it.
