Part 8
The only plant she owned had died in February.
Felix texted that staff had been instructed not to contact her. Then he sent another message saying he was contacting her only to confirm that he would not contact her.
Nora replied with a single period.
He called.
“They interviewed me,” he said.
“What did you see?”
“I’m apparently not allowed to tell you.”
“Then why call?”
“To say they asked whether you had anger problems.”
Nora looked at the dead plant’s empty pot on her windowsill.
“What did you say?”
“I said you once became visibly irritated when a man put gum under a seventeenth-century chest.”
“I was visibly irritated.”
“I also said you didn’t tackle him.”
“Thank you for the nuance.”
Felix lowered his voice. “Half the staff thinks you’re a hero. The other half thinks heroes don’t get promoted.”
“What do you think?”
“I think I need dental insurance.”
Nora appreciated the honesty.
He continued, “Elaine is frightened. Victoria’s office asked for incident reports involving you.”
“I don’t have any.”
“You have the report from the school group.”
“A child ran into me.”
“You raised your voice.”
“I said stop because he was backing toward a sculpture.”
“I know. I was there.”
“Did they ask about my father?”
“Yes.”
Nora sat on the edge of her bed.
“What did you say?”
“That I never met him.”
“That was courageous.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Before hanging up, Felix said, “The flute matters.”
Nora stared at the phone. “What?”
“The champagne flute on the pedestal. I was across the room. It didn’t shake. Victoria told the investigators you pulled her two steps sideways and nearly made her fall.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know. If you had, she would have hit the pedestal.”
“Did you tell them?”
“Yes.”
“Who else saw it?”
“A donor named Miriam Cole. She was standing beside me.”
“Will she say it?”
“She told them she was looking at Arthur, not the flute.”
“Was she?”
“No. She was looking at the diamonds.”
Nora almost laughed.
“She may not want to contradict Victoria,” Felix said.
“Most people don’t.”
“You did.”
“That may be why I’m at home talking to an empty flowerpot.”
On the sixth day after the gala, Arthur left the hospital. His physicians released a brief statement saying he was capable of participating in personal and business decisions. Victoria’s lawyers disputed whether the statement addressed his condition at the time the trust was amended.
The independent trustees postponed their acceptance again.
Donors began choosing sides.
Two promised gifts were delayed. A third benefactor threatened to withdraw funding unless Malcolm resigned. Another offered emergency support on the condition that Victoria be barred from museum property. The board declined both demands and congratulated itself on neutrality.
The museum remained open. Visitors stood in line beneath banners carrying the Vale name. School groups moved through the galleries. Staff members answered questions about paintings while pretending not to read news alerts.
Nora watched from home.
On the eighth day, a courier delivered an envelope from Victoria’s attorneys.
Inside was a proposed settlement.
Victoria would withdraw her complaint against Nora and provide a neutral employment reference. The foundation would offer Nora nine months’ salary. Nora would resign, agree that the contact had resulted from a misunderstanding, and refrain from making statements concerning the Vale family, the gala, Arthur’s health, or the trust.
The document did not require her to say she had lied.
It required her to make the truth smaller.
Leah read it in her office while tapping her pen against her thumbnail.
“Nine months is significant,” she said.
“It’s less than Victoria’s bracelet.”
“Most salaries are.”
“Would you take it?”
“I don’t have your job, your rent, or your mother.”
“My mother isn’t financially dependent on me.”
“No. But you organize your decisions around disappointing her.”
Nora frowned. “Did she call you?”
“No. You talk about her every twelve minutes.”
Leah set down the agreement.
“This does not stop you from cooperating with a formal investigation if legally required. It does stop you from volunteering information. It probably ends your museum career in this city for a while, though the neutral reference helps.”
“Why would the museum pay if Victoria made the offer?”
“The foundation would contribute. Quiet benefits everyone with authority.”
“Arthur?”
“Not everyone with authority has the same interest.”
Nora took the pages and read the first paragraph again.
Nine months’ salary would cover the rent increase. It would pay off the remaining balance from her museum studies program. It would give her time to find another job somewhere far enough from the Vale name that people might judge her on ordinary failures.
She imagined putting the silver pin in a box and never entering the museum again.
“What happens to the trust if I sign?” she asked.
“The trustees still review the amendment.”
“Without my testimony?”
“You have already been interviewed.”
“They can use that?”
“The settlement would limit additional voluntary statements, not erase existing ones.”
“But Victoria can say I took money because my account was weak.”
“She can say many things.”
“What do you think she wants?”
“She wants the employee who touched her to disappear from the story.”
Nora folded the agreement once, then unfolded it along the same crease.
Leah said, “You are allowed to protect yourself.”
“My father used to say that right before doing something that made our lives worse.”
“That doesn’t make it untrue.”
“He refused a severance agreement.”
“Was the agreement fair?”
“No.”
“Did refusing help?”
“No.”
Leah leaned back. “You are looking for a choice that proves you are not your father. There may not be one. You may be like him in some ways and still make your own decision.”
Nora took the agreement home.
May you like
She did not tell Denise about it for two days.
During those two days, she cleaned her apartment, replaced the dead plant with nothing, and read the settlement until the words lost their meaning. She made lists. The first was financial. The second was moral. The third was titled PRACTICAL, which contained the same items as the first two but in different language.
