Chương 8
There was no immediate transfer of control.
No sudden financial windfall.
No clean motive.
Grace was almost relieved.
Real life, she was beginning to understand, rarely delivered motives with arrows drawn around them.
Evelyn had not needed a contract to hate the idea.
She had only needed herself.
The clearer picture came from older things.
Not records.
Stories.
Nathan’s aunt called.
Then a retired executive.
Then Evelyn’s younger sister, whom Nathan had not seen in six years.
People became talkative after an arrest.
Not necessarily truthful.
Just talkative.
Grace listened without deciding what to believe.
Evelyn’s husband, Thomas, had cheated on her early in their marriage.
That part Nathan knew.
What he had not known was that the affair became public inside the company. An employee claimed Thomas had fathered her son. There was a private legal fight. DNA testing eventually excluded Thomas, but by then Evelyn had endured months of gossip among people whose approval she depended on financially and socially.
Nathan’s aunt said Evelyn never recovered from the humiliation.
Nathan hated the explanation.
“So that’s what this becomes?” he asked one evening. “Trauma?”
Grace was folding baby clothes at the foot of the bed.
“No.”
“It sounds like an excuse.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then why are we talking about it?”
“Because people don’t wake up sixty-six years old and try to murder their daughter-in-law because of one conversation.”
Nathan stood at the window.
“Some people do.”
“No. They get there somehow.”
“That doesn’t make the path useful.”
“It does to me.”
“Why?”
Grace folded a tiny yellow onesie and set it aside.
“Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life believing evil is random.”
Nathan turned.
“Maybe that would be easier.”
“I didn’t say easier.”
She picked up another shirt.
Nathan came over and sat beside her.
After a while he folded one.
Badly.
Grace looked at it.
“What?”
“You made a rectangle.”
“It’s clothing.”
“It’s supposed to be folded.”
“It is smaller than it was.”
She took it from him.
“Go away.”
He stayed.
The first time Mark Delaney called, Grace let it go to voicemail.
The second time, she turned the phone face down.
The third time, Nathan was sitting beside her.
“Answer it.”
Grace looked at him.
“You sure?”
“No.”
The phone continued ringing.
“That wasn’t my question.”
Nathan rubbed his palms on his jeans.
“Yes.”
Grace answered.
“Hello.”
Mark was silent for a second.
“Grace.”
His voice had not changed.
She hated that.
“Hi.”
“I saw the article.”
“I figured.”
“I didn’t call because of the article.”
“You called three times because of the weather?”
He exhaled.
“That sounds like you.”
“What do you want, Mark?”
Nathan stood.
Grace grabbed his wrist.
Stay.
He remained.
Mark said, “I need to ask you something.”
“You know what you need to ask.”
“Is the baby mine?”
Grace closed her eyes.
Nathan’s hand tightened around hers.
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then a chair scraped on Mark’s end.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Grace explained only enough.
Mark listened.
When she finished, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The question hurt because it was fair.
“I found out the day before the fall.”
“You could’ve called before now.”
“I could have.”
“Were you going to?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Mark was quiet.
Then he asked, “Is Nathan there?”
Grace looked at Nathan.
“Yes.”
“Does he know you’re talking to me?”
“He’s holding my hand.”
Nathan looked startled by the disclosure.
Mark said nothing for several seconds.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed once.
Not happily.
“Of course he is.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t do that.”
“I’m trying not to say something I’ll regret.”
“Then don’t.”
Another pause.
“I want to know what you expect from me.”
Grace looked down at her stomach.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Well, I need to know.”
“I understand.”
“No, Grace, you don’t. Yesterday I was a guy who made a bad decision with a married woman who told me her marriage was over.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
Grace held his hand harder.
“Today there’s a child.”
“Yes.”
“I need time.”
The words were familiar.
Grace looked at Nathan.
He looked away.
“Take it,” she said.
Mark breathed out.
“Is she okay?”
Grace touched her belly.
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“I’m bruised.”
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
Mark stopped.
“Okay.”
They ended the call without deciding anything.
Grace put the phone down.
Nathan remained standing.
“That was terrible.”
“Yes.”
“I hate him.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know enough.”
Grace looked up.
“No. You know the part where he slept with your wife.”
“That’s a significant part.”
“It is.”
Nathan walked away.
Grace watched him reach the doorway.
“Nathan.”
He stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
He did not turn.
“I know.”
“No. Not because we’re talking about it now. I’m sorry I did it.”
He looked back then.
His face was tired.
“I know that too.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
He leaned against the doorframe.
“And sometimes I’m still angry.”
“You’re allowed.”
“I know.”
They had spent so many years trying to eliminate pain through correct behavior that neither knew what to do with pain that had nowhere morally clean to go.
Grace said, “I’m angry at you for leaving.”
Nathan nodded.
“I know.”
“I’m still angry.”
“You’re allowed.”
She smiled faintly.
“That’s annoying.”
“Very.”
He returned to the bed.
They did not make forgiveness into a ceremony.
They sat there until the baby kicked hard enough for Grace’s shirt to move.
Nathan stared.
“Did you see that?”
“Yes.”
“Was that a foot?”
“Possibly an elbow.”
“That was absolutely a foot.”
“You have no basis for that.”
“I’m her father. I know things.”
Grace looked at him.
Nathan’s expression shifted, realizing what he had said.
He started to apologize.
Grace touched his arm.
“Don’t.”
Three weeks after the fall, prosecutors asked Grace whether she was willing to testify if the case went forward.
Her attorney was present.
Nathan was not.
Grace had insisted.
May you like
The prosecutor spoke carefully.
“Your statement about what Mrs. Blackwood said is important because it bears on intent.”
