Chương 10
At 6:10 she made coffee.
At 6:17 she forgot where she had placed the mug and found it on the bathroom counter beside her toothbrush.
At 6:31 she opened her banking app.
This did not improve her mood.
At 6:45 her father texted a photograph of toast he had burned.
He had recently begun sending Claire evidence of his meals because she had accused him of living on crackers after surgery.
LOOK, CHEF, he wrote.
Claire stared at the photograph.
One piece of toast was nearly black.
She replied, That may qualify as arson.
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Your standards are unreasonable.
Claire smiled.
Then her phone rang.
Graham.
She watched it for two rings before answering.
“Hello?”
“Did I wake you?”
“No.”
“Are you driving?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Claire sat at the small kitchen table.
“What happened?”
A pause.
“Lillian left.”
Claire straightened.
“What do you mean?”
“She went to a hotel.”
“When?”
“About an hour after you did.”
Claire looked at the burned-toast photograph still open on her screen.
“Okay.”
“I checked the recorder after she left.”
“You touched it?”
“No. I checked the manufacturer account.”
Claire waited.
“The device is registered to her email.”
“That’s enough, isn’t it?”
“To prove it’s hers, yes.”
“To prove she put it there?”
“No.”
Claire rubbed her forehead.
Of course.
Reality had developed an irritating resistance to becoming tidy.
Graham continued.
“There’s more.”
Claire did not like the sound of that.
“The account shows recording sessions.”
“How many?”
“Thirty-seven.”
She stopped moving.
“Thirty-seven?”
“Over about eight months.”
Claire looked toward her apartment window.
A neighbor was dragging a blue recycling bin to the curb.
The ordinary sight felt almost offensive.
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t listen?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because some were recorded in private spaces and I want advice before I start opening files.”
Claire nodded, though he could not see her.
“That seems smart.”
“I occasionally manage it.”
She almost smiled.
Then he said, “Claire, there are recordings from times when you were in the house.”
Her hand tightened around the phone.
“What?”
“I can see timestamps.”
“So?”
“So I need to ask whether you ever agreed to be recorded.”
“No.”
“Ever?”
“No.”
“Did Lillian tell you she was recording household conversations?”
“No.”
Claire stood without knowing why.
The chair scraped behind her.
“Was she recording me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I said some sessions happened during your work hours. I don’t know what they contain.”
Claire began pacing the narrow kitchen.
“Why would she record me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I’m not going to invent an answer.”
She pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t.”
Claire stopped pacing.
“Am I still being accused?”
“No.”
“By her?”
A pause.
“I don’t know.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“There it is again.”
“I haven’t spoken to her since midnight.”
“What happened at midnight?”
“She called.”
“And?”
“She wanted me to agree in writing that the recorder belonged to both of us.”
Claire frowned.
“Did it?”
“No.”
“Why would she ask that?”
“I think because I bought it.”
“That’s not the same as owning it.”
“I know.”
“What did you say?”
“No.”
Claire sat again.
“What happens to me?”
“I’m arranging your pay through the end of the month while we sort out whether the position continues.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Claire, my wife accused you of blackmail using a device I gave her.”
The bluntness silenced her.
Graham continued.
“That happened while you were working in our home. I’m not leaving you without income because we made our marriage your workplace problem.”
Claire stared at the table.
There was a water ring near her elbow.
She rubbed at it with her thumb.
“I should’ve said something yesterday.”
“About what?”
“The library.”
“You did.”
“Before yesterday.”
The line went quiet.
Claire closed her eyes.
“I saw her with that recorder more than once.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know. Three? Four?”
“Where?”
“The library. Your office once. Upstairs hallway.”
Graham breathed out slowly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The question hurt because she had asked herself the same thing.
“I didn’t know what it was at first.”
“And later?”
“I suspected.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Claire looked at the refrigerator.
A magnet from Bar Harbor held a grocery receipt against the door.
“I needed my job.”
Graham did not answer.
“She had helped me with my dad,” Claire continued. “And you two were already fighting. I thought if I got involved, I’d become part of it.”
“You were already part of it.”
“I know that now.”
Another pause.
“Did she ever ask you not to tell me something?”
“Not directly.”
“What does that mean?”
Claire remembered a Tuesday in March.
Lillian entering the laundry room while Claire folded linen napkins.
The recorder on the counter.
Lillian picking it up.
Claire asking, “Is that for interviews?”
Lillian answering, “Sometimes it’s best not to be curious about everything you see in other people’s houses.”
Claire had laughed because she had not known whether the sentence was a joke.
Now she told Graham.
He was quiet.
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“And you still didn’t tell me?”
Claire’s shame turned to defensiveness.
“What was I supposed to say? Your wife has an object you bought her?”
“You knew she was using it around my office.”
“I suspected.”
“You could have asked.”
“And if I was wrong?”
“You weren’t.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Graham exhaled.
Claire’s temper rose.
“You get to be angry now because I didn’t risk my paycheck over your marriage?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what it sounds like.”
“I’m angry because I may have been recorded in my own house for eight months.”
“Then be angry at the person who recorded you.”
The silence after that was long.
Claire regretted the sentence.
Not because it was false.
Because it was crueler than she meant.
“I’m sorry.”
Graham said, “You’re right.”
She closed her eyes.
May you like
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
