Chương 9
“I was.”
“I know.”
A tired smile touched Margaret’s mouth.
“I found it very rude.”
Claire almost smiled back.
Almost.
Margaret sat.
“I thought if Ethan married somebody who didn’t need us, he would learn that he didn’t need us either.”
Ethan looked at his mother.
“That’s why you hated her?”
Margaret’s chin lifted.
“I did not hate Claire.”
“You told her she was professionally inconvenient.”
“I said the demands of her career might be incompatible with—”
Claire said, “Margaret.”
Margaret stopped.
A long breath.
“Yes. I was awful.”
No speech followed.
No excuse.
Claire appreciated that more than she wanted to.
Ethan leaned against the wall.
“What happens to us?”
Claire looked at him.
Margaret stood.
“I’ll get coffee.”
“No,” Ethan said. “You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
She left anyway.
Claire watched the door close.
Ethan came closer to the bed.
“Not us like…” He gestured uselessly. “I’m not asking about the wedding.”
“There is no wedding.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
He nodded.
“I meant us as people who know each other.”
Claire looked toward the rain.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you’re about to make your father’s crimes the reason I should forgive your choices.”
Ethan stared at her.
“I’m not.”
“Not yet.”
“That’s fair.”
She looked at him.
“No, it isn’t.”
He frowned.
Claire adjusted the blanket over her leg.
“I don’t want everything to become fair just because something worse happened.”
Ethan’s eyes lowered.
“You hurt me before the crash.”
“I know.”
“And I hurt you.”
“Yes.”
“I was angry when I left.”
“I know.”
“You let me leave.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Claire took a breath.
“I don’t get to turn your father into an explanation for every bad thing between us.”
“No.”
“And you don’t get to use your guilt as proof that you’ve changed.”
He nodded.
“No.”
She stared at him.
“You keep agreeing with me.”
“I’m trying not to make it worse.”
“That’s not always the same as telling the truth.”
Ethan sat in the chair beside the bed.
He rubbed his thumb over the edge of the armrest.
“You want the truth?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if I would have stood up to him if you hadn’t gotten hurt.”
Claire held his gaze.
There it was.
Not the answer she wanted.
The one she believed.
He continued.
“I keep imagining some better version of myself who would have figured it out eventually. Maybe after we got married. Maybe after he humiliated you one more time. Maybe when we had a kid and he tried to make decisions about that too.”
Claire looked away.
Ethan swallowed.
“But I don’t know if that version of me existed.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“I know.”
She almost told him to stop saying that.
Instead she let the silence remain.
Margaret returned carrying three coffees and a paper bag.
“I bought a muffin,” she said.
Ethan looked at her.
“For who?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire laughed.
It hurt her leg.
She stopped immediately.
Margaret looked alarmed.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re clearly not.”
“That has not prevented anyone tonight.”
Margaret set the bag down.
They drank bad coffee.
Nobody solved anything.
At one thirty in the morning, the hospital physician officially canceled Claire’s flight until morning.
At two, Ethan slept in the chair for nine minutes before jerking awake.
At two fifteen, Margaret removed her pearls and placed them inside her handbag as though surrendering a small piece of armor.
At two forty, Claire woke from an accidental sleep because a cart squeaked in the hallway.
For several seconds she thought she was back inside the crushed car.
Her fingers gripped the sheets.
Then she saw Ethan.
He was sitting beneath the window, staring at his phone without touching it.
He noticed she was awake.
“You okay?”
Claire breathed slowly.
“Yes.”
He did not say he knew she was lying.
That helped.
At seven twenty the next morning, Richard Whitmore appeared on three financial news programs without appearing on any of them personally.
Whitmore Holdings issued a statement acknowledging that law enforcement had requested records relating to a traffic collision involving “a family acquaintance.” The statement said the company was cooperating fully.
Claire read the phrase twice.
Family acquaintance.
Ethan stood behind her bed.
“Give me your phone.”
“No.”
“You’re going to throw it.”
“I’m considering it.”
“You need the phone.”
“I can buy another.”
“With what?”
Claire turned.
He raised both hands.
“Sorry. Bad joke.”
Her military pay and savings could afford a phone without Whitmore assistance, and they both knew it.
That was not what made the joke bad.
The phrase family acquaintance had reduced three years of her life to a public relations category.
Margaret entered carrying clothes from her apartment.
She saw the statement on Claire’s screen.
“What does it say?”
Ethan told her.
Margaret closed her eyes.
“He approved that.”
“You don’t know that,” Ethan said.
“Yes, I do.”
“How?”
“Because I have been married to him longer than you have been alive.”
She placed the clothing bag on the chair.
“What else?”
Claire scrolled.
There was already speculation.
Nothing huge yet. A few business reporters had connected Claire’s name to Whitmore through old engagement photographs. A gossip account posted a picture of Claire and Ethan leaving a restaurant the previous spring and called her his “former Marine fiancée,” which was inaccurate in three different ways.
Claire locked the phone.
“I’m not reading any more.”
Ethan looked relieved.
Margaret said, “Good.”
Claire looked at both of them.
“I didn’t ask for supervision.”
Margaret sat.
“No. You didn’t.”
She picked up the muffin from the night before, broke off a piece, tasted it, and made a face.
“This is terrible.”
Ethan looked at her.
“You bought it.”
“I made a mistake.”
Claire stared.
Margaret looked back.
For some reason, all three of them laughed.
The laughter ended quickly.
But it had happened.
May you like
Two hours later, Detective Ortiz returned.
This time she brought a second investigator, a younger man who introduced himself only as part of the team reviewing the collision.
