Chương 4
“That is not fair.”
“It’s exact.”
“I had evidence that someone was mistreating employees in my home.”
“So you could have interviewed them.”
“I did.”
“You could have believed them.”
Eleanor said nothing.
Julian’s face changed.
There it was, the truth she had avoided because it placed her at the center of the failure.
“You didn’t,” he said.
“I believed they were distressed.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Mrs. Alvarez worked here for seventeen years.”
“I know.”
“And when she told you Chloe humiliated her, you needed a disguise.”
“I needed proof you would accept.”
“You needed proof you could control.”
The soup simmered too hard. Eleanor moved the pan off the burner.
She took down two bowls.
Julian laughed once, without amusement. “You’re serving dinner.”
“It has to go somewhere.”
“That is exactly what you do. Something explodes, and you start arranging objects.”
“I’m not arranging anything.”
“You’re putting parsley on soup.”
Eleanor looked at the chopped parsley in her hand.
She dropped it back into its container.
Julian finally sat.
The kitchen was quieter than the foyer. The refrigerator hummed. An old clock above the pantry door ticked two minutes slow because Eleanor had never found a reason to correct it. She ladled soup into one bowl and pushed it toward him.
He did not touch it.
“She lied to me,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Repeatedly.”
“Yes.”
“She deleted messages from my calendar.”
“Yes.”
“You sound satisfied.”
“I am not.”
“You were right.”
“That is not the same as being satisfied.”
“For you, it usually is.”
Eleanor sat across from him.
The towel around her hair had begun to loosen. She tucked one end beneath the other.
“I wanted to be wrong.”
“No, you wanted her to fail in a way I couldn’t deny.”
Eleanor’s fingers rested against the warm bowl.
“That may also be true.”
Julian looked away.
The admission seemed to hurt him more than an argument would have.
He picked up the spoon, stirred the soup once, and set it down.
“When Dad was alive, did you test him?”
“Constantly.”
“Did he know?”
“Eventually.”
“That explains his blood pressure.”
A small laugh escaped Eleanor before she could stop it.
Julian looked at her, and the corner of his mouth moved despite himself. The moment passed almost immediately, but it left the room less rigid.
Eleanor tasted the soup. It needed salt.
“She said you investigated her family,” Julian said.
“I did.”
“You told me you hadn’t.”
“I said I had not hired a private investigator.”
“You asked Martin to conduct a background review.”
“That is standard before anyone gains access to the foundation’s private financial meetings.”
“She attended one dinner.”
“She asked to attend the retreat.”
“She wanted to understand my life.”
“She also asked whether marriage would make her eligible to vote on grants.”
Julian rubbed his thumb along the edge of the island.
“She grew up with nothing.”
“I know.”
“Her father disappeared when she was twelve. Her mother lost their apartment twice. Chloe worked through college.”
“I know that too.”
“You say it like data.”
“I say it like information you believe I ignored.”
“You did ignore it. You looked at her debt and saw a risk.”
“I looked at the way she concealed the debt and saw a risk.”
“She was ashamed.”
“She told you it was forty thousand dollars. It was almost two hundred thousand.”
Julian’s hand stopped moving.
Eleanor regretted the number as soon as it left her mouth.
He stared at her.
“What?”
“She did not tell you?”
“You know she didn’t.”
Eleanor stood, took her bowl to the sink, and rinsed it though she had eaten only two spoonfuls.
Julian’s voice lowered. “How do you know?”
“The financial disclosure she completed for the foundation retreat.”
“That document was confidential.”
“I chair the foundation.”
“That does not make it yours.”
“It makes the organization liable if a participant with access to donor information has undisclosed financial pressure.”
“She didn’t have access to donor accounts.”
“She requested it.”
“She was planning a fundraising campaign.”
“She was planning a wedding.”
Julian pushed the bowl away.
“You had no right to keep this from me.”
“She asked that it remain confidential.”
“And you honored her request?”
“Yes.”
“While dressing as a maid to record her?”
Eleanor closed her eyes briefly.
The contradictions had seemed manageable when separated into different weeks, different conversations, different justifications. In one kitchen, spoken aloud, they sounded like what they were.
“I did not handle any of this well.”
Julian stood.
“That may be the first honest thing you’ve said tonight.”
He took the recorder and left the kitchen.
Eleanor remained beside the sink until the soup cooled.
At eleven, the house had gone silent except for footsteps overhead.
Eleanor sat in her late husband’s study wearing dry slacks and a gray sweater. The dark wig lay on a towel near the fireplace, still damp and faintly absurd. Her glasses had been cleaned, but a speck of soil remained trapped beneath the right hinge.
Thomas had chosen the study’s green walls because he claimed every respectable house needed one room that looked like a bank. Eleanor had told him banks no longer looked like that. He had said respectable ones did.
His books still occupied the shelves. She had moved none of them.
On the desk sat a photograph of Julian at eight years old, missing one front tooth and holding a wooden sailboat he had built badly. Thomas stood behind him, pretending the crooked mast was straight.
Eleanor turned the photograph facedown.
A knock sounded.
Chloe entered without waiting.
She had changed from the gold gown into black leggings and a cream sweater. Her makeup had been removed. Without it, she looked younger and more exhausted. Her eyes were swollen, though Eleanor could not tell whether she had cried or rubbed them until they appeared that way.
“You broke the lock on my door,” Eleanor said.
“It wasn’t locked.”
May you like
“I thought it was.”
“You’re losing your touch.”
