Part 10
“Do you love Daddy?”
The question had lived somewhere in Eleanor’s body all day.
“I loved him,” she said. “Sometimes I still feel the old habit of it.”
“What’s a habit of love?”
Eleanor brushed Bunny’s ear away from Lily’s mouth. “It’s when your heart reaches for someone before it remembers what happened.”
Lily nodded as if this made unfortunate sense.
“Do I have to talk to him?”
“No. Not right now.”
“What if the judge says I do?”
“Then I will be with you as much as the rules allow, and other safe adults will be there.”
“What if he’s mad?”
“Then the safe adults will see.”
Lily thought about that. “Grown-ups don’t always see.”
Eleanor could not argue.
“No,” she said. “They don’t. But I’m going to make it harder for them not to.”
The next day, at Helena’s office, Lily sat on the exam table wearing a sweater with a tiny dog stitched on the front. Helena checked the wound, asked about headaches, sleep, nightmares, appetite. Lily answered some questions, shrugged at others, and became very interested in the paper sheet beneath her.
Helena did not push.
At the end, she handed Lily two stickers. Lily chose a turtle and a glittery star.
“One for Bunny,” Lily explained.
“Bunny has excellent taste,” Helena said.
While Lily put the sticker on the stuffed rabbit’s ear, Helena stepped into the hall with Eleanor.
“She’s guarded,” Helena said. “That’s expected. I’m documenting everything. I also want to refer her to a child trauma therapist. Someone good, not someone who will make her perform feelings on command.”
Eleanor nodded.
“And you?” Helena asked.
“I’m fine.”
Helena gave her a look.
Eleanor sighed. “I’m not fine.”
“Better.”
“I don’t know how to answer when people ask what happened. If I say too much, I sound vindictive. If I say too little, he fills the space.”
“Say what is true and necessary.”
“That sounds simple.”
“It isn’t.”
Helena leaned against the wall, tired suddenly. “I should have intervened faster.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because many of us failed in the same direction.”
Eleanor looked through the small window in the exam room door. Lily was making Bunny nod at the turtle sticker.
“Why?” Eleanor asked. “Why did everyone freeze?”
Helena crossed her arms. “Because the brain hates changing its opinion about powerful people in real time. Because people confuse confidence with credibility. Because no one wants to be the first person to call violence violence in a room where violence is wearing a tuxedo.”
Eleanor absorbed that.
“Also,” Helena added, “because some people are cowards.”
Eleanor smiled faintly. “Malcolm used that word.”
“He should.”
On the way out, Eleanor passed a mother arguing with a receptionist about insurance. A toddler dropped a cracker and stepped on it. The ordinary mess of the world moved around her, indifferent and oddly comforting. Not every room was waiting for Adrian. Not every sound belonged to him.
In the parking lot, she checked her phone and found an email from the foundation board. She had been placed on temporary leave from her public-facing role pending review “to reduce strain on the family and protect the foundation’s mission.” Adrian had also been asked to step back from day-to-day foundation activities, though the wording around him was softer: “Mr. Vale has voluntarily agreed to a temporary pause.”
Voluntarily.
Eleanor laughed once in the cold air.
Lily looked up. “What?”
“Nothing. A grown-up wrote something silly.”
“Is it bad silly?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because sometimes bad silly shows you who wrote it.”
She forwarded the email to Maribel and kept walking.
That afternoon, Malcolm sent a list of guests who had been near the front of the ballroom. Some had agreed to speak to Maribel. Others preferred not to be involved. One claimed she had been in the restroom despite appearing clearly in a photograph near the stage. Another said she was “too traumatized to recall specifics,” though she had posted a detailed review of the dessert course the next morning.
Eleanor read the list with growing disgust.
Then she came to Tasha’s name. Beside it Malcolm had written: Very clear account. Also may know about service corridor audio.
Audio.
Eleanor called him immediately.
“What does that mean?”
Malcolm sounded uncomfortable. “Some of the event staff wear communication headsets. The production company sometimes records the channel during events for timing and coordination. It wouldn’t capture everything, but it might have caught the impact and some voices near the stage.”
“Who has it?”
“The production company. Adrian doesn’t know yet, I don’t think.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“I only found out because Tasha asked whether anyone had requested the comms log.”
Eleanor closed her eyes. Tasha again. The employee Adrian had tried to dismiss.
“Can it be deleted?”
“Maybe. I’m asking the hotel to preserve it, but Maribel should send something formal.”
Eleanor sent the information at once. Maribel replied within minutes: On it. Do not discuss with anyone else.
But someone else already knew.
By evening, Dennis Hart had filed a letter accusing Eleanor of orchestrating a smear campaign using manipulated clips and biased staff testimony. He requested that the court consider Adrian’s right to unsupervised contact with Lily because “parental alienation appeared underway.” The phrase made Eleanor so angry she cleaned Nora’s sister’s kitchen without being asked, scrubbing a pot that had already been clean.
Nora found her at the sink. “You’re going to remove the enamel.”
“Good.”
“Ellie.”
“He hurt her and now he’s accusing me of alienating her because she’s afraid of him.”
“I know.”
“He gets language. He always gets language. I get blood and forms and ugly borrowed pants.”
Nora looked at the sweatpants. “They are ugly.”
Eleanor turned off the water.
Nora leaned against the counter. “You know what I remember? The first time I met him, he corrected the way you told a story.”
Eleanor frowned. “What story?”
May you like
“The Chicago hotel one. With the fire alarm.”
“Oh.”
