Chương 9
Griffin’s reply came more quietly. “Teach me.”
The request stopped her.
Not help me. Not allow me. Teach me.
Sloan sat at the kitchen counter. The heart monitor beneath her blouse pulled at her skin.
“I can’t teach you while defending them from you,” she said.
“I’ll cancel the firm.”
“And call the district yourself.”
“What should I say?”
“The truth. That you overreacted.”
He exhaled.
“That will become a public record if they document it.”
“Yes.”
A long pause.
“All right.”
He made the call.
The district attorney was not impressed by his apology. The principal remained cautious. The privacy firm withdrew its warning and sent a clarification. Nothing returned to normal immediately, but the twins went back to school the following Monday with a written plan limiting unauthorized photography and a staff member assigned to monitor dismissal.
Griffin waited three blocks away.
Hazel texted him a photograph of a worm she found near the playground.
Iris sent nothing.
The Rainier Commons coalition continued to unravel.
Their lender did not return. Two nonprofit partners worried that Drake Urban would challenge the selection process if Sloan’s team won. A city staff member suggested she step away from the proposal to remove the appearance of conflict.
Mateo delivered the news in Sloan’s office while eating noodles from a paper carton.
“They didn’t say you had to leave,” he said.
“They said the project may be easier to evaluate if I’m no longer the lead architect.”
“That is city language for pushing someone into traffic while apologizing about the curb.”
Sloan stared at the courtyard drawing pinned to the wall.
She had worked on it for fourteen months. She knew where winter light would reach the daycare windows, which apartments could be adapted for wheelchair users without destroying the floor plans, and how the market stalls could close at night without turning the plaza into a wall of metal gates.
“If I leave, does the coalition stay together?” she asked.
Mateo looked down at his noodles.
“Probably.”
“That means yes.”
“It means maybe.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m an architect. We call lies renderings.”
She almost smiled.
Mateo put the carton aside. “You collapsing scared everyone. Then the Drake story hit. People are wondering whether you can lead the final phase.”
“I can.”
“I know.”
“But?”
“You’re still wearing a cardiac monitor and sleeping four hours.”
“I sleep six.”
“You answer emails at three in the morning.”
“I wake up.”
“That is not sleep.”
Sloan folded her arms. “Do you want me off the project?”
“I want you alive when we build it.”
The sentence irritated her because it sounded reasonable.
She went home early and found Griffin on the floor with the twins, surrounded by pieces of a model helicopter. It was a plastic kit from a hobby store, not an expensive gift. Hazel had glued one rotor upside down. Iris was reading the instructions aloud with the severity of a prosecutor.
Sloan stopped in the doorway.
For a moment, none of them noticed her.
Griffin wore an old gray T-shirt and black trousers. His silver watch rested on the coffee table beside a cup of tea. Hazel leaned against his shoulder. Iris sat cross-legged opposite him, correcting his use of a tiny screwdriver.
The scene was ordinary enough to be dangerous.
Hazel saw Sloan first. “We broke it.”
“You haven’t built it yet.”
“We broke it before building it.”
“That takes talent.”
Griffin looked up. “You’re home early.”
“It’s my home.”
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
He studied her face. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Iris groaned. “Adults say nothing when something happened.”
Sloan put down her bag.
Griffin did not ask again until the twins went to Mrs. Chen’s for dinner.
Then he found Sloan in the office removing the courtyard drawing from the wall.
“Why are you taking that down?”
“I may be leaving the project.”
His body became still. “Because of me.”
“Because the coalition needs financing.”
“I can replace the lender.”
“No.”
“Through a blind foundation.”
“That is still your money.”
“They would not need to know.”
She turned. “Listen to yourself.”
“I’m offering a solution.”
“You’re offering secret financial influence to fix a scandal about secret financial influence.”
“When you phrase it that way—”
“There is no other way to phrase it.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Then I’ll withdraw Drake Urban.”
“We discussed this.”
“The circumstances changed.”
“They changed because your existence entered my work like a wrecking ball.”
“I did not leak the story.”
“No. You only brought the helicopter, the security team, the attorneys, the privacy firm, and the controlling father who apparently knew I was pregnant before you did.”
Griffin’s expression sharpened. “I’m investigating that.”
“Of course you are.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you prefer a crime with documents because then someone can be guilty in a format your lawyers understand.”
“He threatened you.”
“And you ignored me.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew I was calling.”
“I thought you wanted to continue an argument.”
“I wanted to tell you I was pregnant.”
“You never said it in a message.”
“I said I needed to speak to you in person.”
“You had said that before.”
“Because some things mattered before the twins existed.”
He stepped closer, then stopped at the invisible boundary he was learning to see.
“I was wrong,” he said.
The simplicity of it left her with nowhere to strike.
He continued. “I was cruel. I thought silence was temporary because I controlled when it ended. I didn’t consider what the silence was doing to you.”
Sloan looked at the rolled blueprint in her hands.
“That doesn’t give me eight years back,” he said. “But it means I don’t get to pretend this was done only to me.”
The elevator chimed. Mrs. Chen returned the twins early because her restaurant freezer had failed and she needed to go downtown.
The conversation ended.
May you like
Real life had poor respect for dramatic timing.
Adrian Mercer was found in Port Townsend, where he volunteered at a maritime museum and restored radios. He refused Griffin’s first call. He accepted the second after Daniel left a message explaining that two children were involved.
