Chương 8
Then Lucia began to cry.
Elena stood.
A staff member looked up from the desk. “Denise will get you if needed.”
The crying continued.
Elena sat.
It stopped after less than a minute.
She did not know whether to feel relieved or replaced.
When the visit ended, Adrian carried Lucia to the doorway. He held her too far from his body, elbows tense, but he supported her securely.
“She likes the keys,” he said.
“She likes anything that can injure her mouth.”
He looked almost amused.
Then his expression changed.
“You didn’t have to do it that way.”
Elena took Lucia.
“Which part?”
“The wedding.”
“How should I have done it?”
“You could have called.”
“You blocked me.”
“You could have contacted my lawyer.”
“You told me you couldn’t remember his name.”
His mouth tightened.
Denise remained near enough to hear them.
Adrian lowered his voice. “Claire is trying to destroy my company.”
“Did she transfer money to it?”
“That has nothing to do with you.”
“It may have paid for the lawyer you didn’t hire.”
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
“You walked into a room carrying my child and made me look like a criminal.”
“You forged a court judgment.”
“I forwarded a document.”
“From whom?”
He looked toward Denise.
“I’m not discussing this here.”
“Then stop discussing it.”
Elena turned away.
“Elena.”
She looked back.
“I did love you.”
The sentence arrived so softly that for a moment she mistook it for sincerity.
Then she recognized the timing.
He had not said it when she was pregnant, when she asked for help, when she found the forged judgment, or when she stood in the ballroom. He said it after his first supervised visit, with a social worker watching, while he needed the past to appear complicated enough to protect him.
She adjusted Lucia’s sweater.
“I know,” she said. “That’s part of what is wrong with you.”
Outside, rain had begun. Elena stood beneath the awning and waited for a cab while Lucia slapped both hands against the plastic cover of the stroller.
A black umbrella appeared beside her.
Margaret Vale held it over them.
Elena stiffened.
“I’m not here for Adrian,” Margaret said.
“That would be a first.”
Margaret accepted the insult without reaction.
She wore a gray raincoat and low shoes. Without the silver gown and formal hair, she looked older and more tired. She glanced through the plastic stroller cover.
“May I see her?”
“You are seeing her.”
Margaret nodded.
Lucia stared back.
“She has his eyes,” Margaret said.
“She has my eyes.”
“Yes. I suppose she does.”
The cab app showed a twelve-minute wait.
Margaret shifted the umbrella.
“I owe you an apology.”
Elena looked toward the street.
“For which part?”
“I believed him.”
“That part has several years.”
“He told me the marriage ended because you were jealous and unstable.”
“I was jealous.”
Margaret waited.
“And sometimes unstable,” Elena added. “Not in the way he meant.”
“He said you refused to let him see the baby because you wanted money.”
“I wanted daycare money.”
“He said the divorce was delayed because you kept changing the agreement.”
“There was no agreement.”
“I know that now.”
Rain tapped against the umbrella.
Margaret took an envelope from her coat pocket.
“He asked me for twenty-five thousand dollars last winter. He said it was for legal fees and a settlement with you.”
Elena looked at the envelope but did not take it.
“What is that?”
“Copies of the bank transfer and his emails.”
“Why give them to me?”
“Because he used you as the reason.”
“Did you ask for proof?”
“He sent me an invoice.”
“From the fake law office?”
“Yes.”
Elena took the envelope.
Margaret’s fingers remained on it for a second.
“I should have called you.”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid you would tell me something I could not excuse.”
The honesty made Elena angrier than denial would have.
“You chose not knowing.”
“I did.”
“Now you’re choosing Claire?”
“I am choosing not to lie for him.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Margaret lowered her eyes.
“My husband did something similar,” she said. “Not another marriage. Money. He used my name on loans. When Adrian was nineteen, he found me burning collection notices in the kitchen sink. I told him his father had made a mistake.”
Elena waited.
“I thought protecting a child meant preserving his idea of his father. Perhaps Adrian learned that facts are things women clean up.”
The sentence sounded rehearsed, but Margaret’s hand shook around the umbrella handle.
Elena placed the envelope in the stroller basket.
“You should give copies to Naomi and Claire’s attorneys.”
“I have.”
“Does Adrian know?”
“No.”
“When he finds out, he will blame you.”
“I know.”
The cab turned onto the block.
Margaret touched the plastic stroller cover with two fingers, not quite touching Lucia.
“May I ask something?”
Elena opened the cab door.
“You can ask.”
“If visitation becomes regular, I would like to know her.”
Elena looked at the woman who had stood beside Claire beneath the floral arch, wearing disbelief like a mask.
“I don’t know yet.”
Margaret nodded. “That is fair.”
It was not forgiveness. Elena did not have any to offer.
The envelope changed the investigation.
The invoice Adrian had sent his mother contained a routing number tied not to a law firm but to a business account controlled by Vale Urban Partners. The signature at the bottom belonged to an attorney who had retired two years earlier. The same invoice template appeared in documents Adrian had shown Claire’s father while explaining why a portion of Claire’s investment needed to be used immediately.
The lies had not been separate.
May you like
They were a system.
Adrian’s company was not entirely fictional. It owned minority interests in two buildings and managed renovation work for three others. But its cash flow had collapsed after a lender withdrew. Adrian had used new money to cover older obligations, shifting explanations according to the person writing the check.
