Chương 8
The email spread through the office in under six minutes.
By lunch, three employees had asked whether they should update their résumés.
Public opinion did not choose a side as cleanly as Claire expected. Some employees were angry with Daniel. Others believed Claire should keep marital conflict away from work. A senior project manager told Evan that nobody cared who slept with whom as long as checks cleared.
Claire heard versions of herself in office whispers.
Controlling.
Cold.
The reason Daniel stayed late.
The real brain behind the company.
A wife using paperwork as a weapon.
A woman who had been humiliated.
A woman who must have known.
She wanted to correct all of them.
Melissa advised her not to.
“You can spend your life chasing each inaccurate sentence,” the attorney said. “You will still be divorced at the end of it.”
“I’m not concerned about gossip.”
“You have mentioned gossip three times.”
“I’m concerned about credibility.”
“Of course. That is a more respectable word.”
Claire disliked Melissa more each time they spoke, which was part of why she kept hiring her.
On Thursday, Madison appeared outside Claire’s apartment.
The bakery downstairs had closed, and the alley smelled of yeast and diesel. Madison stood beneath the exterior light wearing a long black coat. Her hair was tied back. She looked younger without the polished makeup Claire remembered from the charity event.
Claire did not invite her inside.
“How did you find me?”
“I asked Rebecca.”
“That was inappropriate.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Daniel said you’re trying to destroy the company.”
“Daniel says many things.”
Madison swallowed.
“He told me not to contact you.”
“But you came.”
“I need you to know I didn’t understand.”
Claire folded her arms against the cold.
“Did you know he was married?”
“Yes.”
“Then you understood enough.”
Madison looked toward the street.
“He said you lived like business partners.”
“We slept in the same bed.”
“I know that now.”
“He kissed me Thanksgiving morning.”
Madison’s face changed.
Claire felt a brief, ugly satisfaction and despised herself for it.
Madison said, “He was with me Wednesday night.”
Claire’s satisfaction disappeared.
A delivery van rattled past the mouth of the alley.
“What do you want from me?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I want you not to think I came into your house knowing.”
“You went to Eleanor’s house.”
“Daniel said you had moved into the guest room in August. He said you refused to announce the separation because of the company loan.”
“And that seemed believable?”
“He showed me the apartment lease. He said he was living there.”
“Were you living there?”
“Sometimes.”
“Were you billing my company while sleeping with its CEO?”
Madison flushed.
“I did the work.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Most of it.”
“What does that mean?”
“Some invoices included travel.”
“Personal travel?”
Madison looked away.
Claire waited.
“A weekend in Boston,” she said. “One in Newport.”
“Billed as client development.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sent the invoices.”
“Daniel told me what amounts to use.”
Claire felt the cold through the soles of her shoes.
“Do you have the messages?”
Madison nodded.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because he asked me to alter the invoices.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Claire took a slow breath.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Will you give me copies?”
Madison’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you going to use them in the divorce?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Are you going to report me?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“I could lose my business.”
“You used false invoices.”
“I believed he was separating.”
“That has nothing to do with false invoices.”
“I know.”
Madison’s voice broke on the last word, but she did not cry.
Claire studied her. She saw a woman who had accepted convenient lies and then discovered convenience charged interest. That did not make Madison innocent. It did not make her uniquely monstrous either.
“Send the records to my attorney,” Claire said.
“I don’t have her address.”
Claire gave it to her.
Madison typed it into her phone.
Before leaving, she said, “He told me you were incapable of being happy unless you were needed.”
Claire went still.
Madison immediately looked ashamed.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
Claire watched her walk away.
Upstairs, the apartment felt too warm. She opened a window despite the cold and sat on the burgundy sofa.
Incapable of being happy unless you were needed.
The cruelty of the sentence was not that it was false.
The next morning, Claire met Daniel’s father at a diner near the highway.
Walter Mercer arrived with his cane and a wool cap pulled low over his ears. Since his stroke three years earlier, his left hand remained slightly curled and his speech slowed when he was tired. He hated being helped into chairs.
Claire waited until he had arranged himself.
A waitress poured coffee for both of them. Walter added too much sugar.
“Your coffee,” Claire said.
“My coffee.”
“You used to complain that sugar ruined it.”
“I used to have taste buds.”
The waitress took their breakfast order. Walter chose eggs and rye toast. Claire ordered oatmeal and did not want it.
For several minutes they discussed nothing important. The diner’s holiday decorations included silver garland taped around a framed photograph of the original owner. A truck driver at the counter read a newspaper. Someone dropped a spoon.
Walter folded a paper napkin into a narrow strip.
“Your mother-in-law told me not to call,” he said.
“That usually works on you.”
“No.”
“It usually works on everyone.”
He looked at her.
“I knew Daniel was unhappy.”
“Did you know about Madison?”
“Not until two days before Thanksgiving.”
“Did you know he planned to tell me at dinner?”
“No.”
“Would you have stopped him?”
Walter moved the napkin between his fingers.
“I would like to say yes.”
Claire looked toward the window.
“That’s not an answer.”
May you like
“It is the only honest one I have.”
Their food arrived. Walter struggled to cut his toast one-handed. Claire almost reached for his knife, then stopped.
