Chương 4
“You said, ‘You don't want to find out what happens when the wrong mother decides you're unsafe.’”
Noah looked between them.
Ethan stepped into the doorway and pulled the door almost closed behind him.
“Not in front of him.”
Vanessa lowered her voice.
“So now you believe every word she says.”
“No.”
Maya's eyes moved to him.
It was subtle.
Still, he saw it.
“No,” Ethan repeated. “I believe the recording. I believe Noah is frightened. Everything else, I'm going to sort out.”
Maya gave a small nod.
Vanessa's expression became almost triumphant.
“There. At least you're not completely insane.”
Ethan looked at her.
“That wasn't reassurance.”
He took his phone from his trouser pocket and called Daniel Roth, an attorney he had known for eleven years.
Daniel answered on the third ring.
“Ethan?”
“I need a personal recommendation.”
“For what?”
“A family lawyer.”
Silence.
Then Daniel said, “Yours or hers?”
“I don't know yet.”
Vanessa stared at him.
Maya looked down.
Daniel's tone changed.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Is Noah safe?”
Ethan looked through the narrow gap in the door.
The boy was sitting exactly where Ethan had left him.
“Yes.”
“Then don't turn tonight into a courtroom. Preserve whatever happened. Don't coach the kid. Don't interrogate him. Get everyone through the next few hours.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“I already asked questions.”
“Stop now.”
“Okay.”
“And Ethan?”
“Yes.”
“Do not make any permanent decisions while everybody's flooded.”
Vanessa laughed under her breath.
Ethan turned away.
Daniel continued, “I'll send you two names. Pick one. Call tonight if you can.”
Ethan ended the call.
Vanessa had gone pale.
“You called a lawyer.”
“I called Daniel.”
“For a lawyer.”
“Yes.”
“So that's it.”
“I don't know what ‘it’ is.”
“You just turned our marriage into a legal problem.”
“No. You made Noah manufacture an accusation against an employee.”
Vanessa looked toward Maya.
“She is not just an employee and you know it.”
Maya's face flushed.
Ethan felt something shift.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Maya's eyes snapped to Vanessa.
“Don't.”
Vanessa tilted her head.
“Oh, now we're worried about boundaries?”
Ethan looked from one woman to the other.
“What?”
Maya spoke first.
“There is nothing.”
Vanessa smiled.
The expression was awful because it was wounded.
“She got a job offer two months ago and didn't tell you.”
Ethan looked at Maya.
She looked back.
“That part is true.”
“Boston?”
“Yes.”
Noah called from inside the room.
“Maya?”
She turned immediately.
“I'm here.”
That immediate response did something to Vanessa.
Her face folded for a fraction of a second before she recovered.
Ethan saw it.
So did Maya.
Maya lowered her voice.
“I hadn't accepted.”
“Why were you looking?”
“I wasn't. A former employer gave my number to a family.”
“Were you going to leave?”
“I don't know.”
“When were you going to tell us?”
“When I knew.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“She was leaving because she knew exactly what she'd done.”
Maya looked at her.
“No. I was considering leaving because I couldn't keep working in a house where I was being used as a weapon in your marriage.”
The words hung there.
Ethan felt heat rise into his face.
Maya continued before either of them could interrupt.
“You ask me to keep Noah away from Vanessa when you're angry. Vanessa asks me to tell her when you come home late. You both ask what he says about the other one. You both pretend it's concern.”
Ethan's first reaction was defensiveness.
It came so quickly that he almost admired its efficiency.
“I have never asked you to spy on Vanessa.”
“You asked me if Noah said anything after she missed his school assembly.”
“That isn't spying.”
“No. But you asked in the kitchen while he was five feet away.”
Ethan opened his mouth.
Nothing useful came out.
Maya's voice shook now.
“You don't have to be cruel to put a child in the middle. Sometimes you just have to keep making him important to arguments he doesn't understand.”
Vanessa looked at Ethan.
For once, she had no comeback.
Inside the room, Noah said, “Can I have water?”
Maya turned.
“I'll get it.”
Ethan said, “I'll do it.”
He went to the kitchen.
It was the first thing he had known how to do in twenty minutes.
He found Noah's favorite blue cup in the wrong cabinet, then remembered Maya had moved the children's cups lower so Noah could reach them himself. He filled it halfway because full cups were easier to spill.
The detail embarrassed him.
Not because he knew it.
Because he had learned it from Maya.
When he returned, Vanessa was gone.
Maya stood in the hall.
“Where is she?”
“Bedroom.”
“Okay.”
“Ethan.”
He stopped.
“If you want me to leave tonight, I will.”
He looked at her.
“Do you want to?”
“No.”
“Then don't.”
“My being here may make this worse.”
“For Vanessa?”
“For Noah.”
“He asked for you.”
“That doesn't mean I should become the person he hides behind every time he's frightened of his mother.”
Ethan looked through the doorway.
Noah was pulling loose threads from the blanket.
“What should I do?”
Maya seemed startled.
It might have been the first time he had ever asked her that without expecting a quick logistical answer.
“Sit with him.”
“That's it?”
“For tonight.”
He handed her the water.
“You do it.”
She shook her head.
“He asked for you.”
So Ethan sat beside his son until the light outside turned gold and then gray.
They did not discuss the recording again.
Noah drank half the water. He complained that Maya's mattress was too hard. Ethan agreed. Noah asked if they could order noodles. Ethan said yes. Noah requested the restaurant that put too much cilantro on everything, then spent five minutes carefully removing cilantro from his food.
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At seven fifteen, the doorman called upstairs to say Mrs. Cole's car had been canceled.
At seven forty, Vanessa came into the kitchen wearing cream trousers and a sweater instead of the red dress. Her makeup had been removed. She looked younger without it and much more tired.
