Chương 7
“No.”
“You don’t touch it.”
“Fine.”
Claire watched a decision happen.
Not in Lillian’s face.
In her body.
Her shoulders lowered slightly. She uncrossed her ankles. She shifted the phone from her right hand to her left.
Then she said, “The battery is nearly dead.”
Graham’s eyes moved to the screen.
“Charge it.”
“I don’t have a charger down here.”
“There’s one in the kitchen.”
“For your phone.”
“We use the same connector.”
“I don’t want to.”
Graham looked at her.
Claire looked down.
There was something unbearable about witnessing a marriage reach the point where the type of charging cable became part of a lie.
Lillian seemed to hear it too.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she looked at Claire.
“How much?”
Claire frowned.
“What?”
“For you to leave.”
Graham went rigid.
Claire stared at her.
Lillian spoke faster now.
“Not to admit anything. Not to sign anything false. I’m saying this employment relationship is obviously finished. I will pay six months’ salary in addition to anything owed. You go home. You don’t speak publicly about this family. We resolve whatever happened here privately.”
Graham’s voice was low.
“Stop talking.”
Lillian ignored him.
Claire could not.
Six months.
The figure arrived before she wanted it to.
She knew her monthly take-home within twelve dollars.
She knew what six months could do.
Her father’s remaining debt.
The tuition deposit.
A different apartment, possibly one without a bathroom fan that rattled like a jar of screws.
A few weeks in which losing a job did not immediately become an emergency.
Claire hated money for making lies feel reasonable.
“Would I have to say I put it there?”
“No.”
“Would I have to say you didn’t?”
Lillian paused.
There it was.
Graham’s head turned slowly toward his wife.
Claire felt something inside her sink.
Lillian looked at the floor.
“I would need a confidentiality agreement.”
“You already have one,” Graham said.
“It may not cover allegations made after termination.”
“That is not what she asked.”
Lillian looked at him.
“You wanted me to be precise.”
“I want you to answer her.”
Claire’s mouth had gone dry.
“Would I have to say you didn’t put it there?”
Lillian lifted her chin.
“You would agree not to make claims you cannot prove.”
Claire nodded slowly.
“That’s different.”
“From what?”
“From saying I won’t talk about your private life.”
Lillian said nothing.
Claire looked at the handbag.
The recorder continued blinking.
She imagined six months of pay entering her bank account.
She imagined telling her sister a softened version.
They had a disagreement. The job ended. It’s okay.
She imagined enrolling in classes.
She imagined sleeping.
Then she imagined applying for another household position and being asked why she left the Mercers.
She imagined Lillian answering the reference call.
She imagined spending years wondering whether silence had been purchased or merely rented.
Claire bent and picked up her tote.
Lillian watched closely.
“For a year,” Claire said, “I thought you were hard on me because that was just how you were.”
Lillian’s mouth tightened.
“This is not the time for an evaluation of my personality.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t.”
Claire nodded.
Another habit.
Obey first.
Think later.
She forced herself to keep speaking.
“I thought you could be mean, but fair.”
Graham looked away.
Claire felt embarrassed.
The sentence sounded childish out loud.
Lillian’s face did not soften.
“Six months is fair.”
“No,” Claire said.
The word came more easily this time.
Lillian blinked.
Claire tightened the tote strap.
“No money.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
“You should think before being dramatic.”
“I am thinking.”
“Not very well.”
Claire almost smiled.
“That sounds more normal.”
For a moment, Lillian looked as though she might smile too.
She did not.
Claire continued.
“I want my final pay. I want a letter that says when I worked here and what my duties were. Nothing else.”
Lillian’s eyes narrowed.
“And in return?”
“Nothing.”
“Then we have no agreement.”
“I’m not making one.”
Graham looked at Claire.
She did not look back.
If she did, she might start crying again.
Lillian’s voice cooled.
“You understand that accusing an employer of planting surveillance equipment is serious.”
“Yes.”
“You understand I can protect myself.”
“Yes.”
“You understand that people will ask whether you had access to this house.”
“Yes.”
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“To my purse.”
“No.”
“To my bedroom.”
“To clean it.”
“To the library.”
“Sometimes.”
“To my phone?”
“No.”
“You have handled it.”
Claire frowned.
“When?”
“You brought it to me once from the kitchen.”
Claire remembered.
Months earlier.
Lillian had left the phone beside the coffee maker and called from upstairs asking Claire to bring it.
Claire almost laughed from disbelief.
“For thirty seconds.”
“You had access.”
Graham said, “Lillian.”
She turned.
“What? You want facts. Those are facts.”
Claire’s anger returned.
“That was in February.”
“You remember?”
“Yes.”
Lillian stared at her.
Claire almost said, You told me I held it like it was contaminated.
She stopped herself.
Then reconsidered.
“You told me I held it like it was contaminated.”
Graham made a quiet sound through his nose.
Lillian glared at him.
He lifted both hands.
“Sorry.”
It was so absurd that Claire laughed.
One startled, breathless sound.
Then Graham laughed too.
Not loudly.
Lillian looked between them with fury.
And then, against every expectation Claire had formed about the woman in thirteen months, Lillian laughed.
It lasted perhaps one second.
She covered her mouth.
The sound vanished.
All three stood in the white foyer, temporarily disarmed by the stupidity of the memory.
Claire felt tears sting again, this time for reasons she could not separate.
Lillian lowered her hand.
Her face looked tired.
“I hate this house,” she said.
Graham stared at her.
Claire did too.
Lillian looked up at the chandelier.
“I hate that thing most of all.”
“You chose it,” Graham said.
“I know.”
“You made them send back the first one.”
“I know.”
“Because the proportions were wrong.”
May you like
“They were.”
Claire laughed again before she could help it.
