Chương 5
“About the trust?”
“About them.”
“I knew Robert was taking money.”
Her eyes opened.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“You said the accounting error was probably nothing.”
“I was trying to verify it before I frightened you.”
“You let them into our home.”
“You invited them.”
“Because you told me they were annoying, not dangerous.”
“I didn’t know they would do this.”
“No. You only knew enough to lie.”
The nurse looked toward the door, uncomfortable.
Vincent lowered his voice.
“This is not the time.”
Emily gave a weak laugh that became a cough.
“When is the time, Vincent? After another person tells me my husband isn’t who I think he is?”
He went still.
She watched the silence answer for him.
“What did you say to Robert?” she asked.
“Emily.”
“What did you say?”
“I was angry.”
“What did you say?”
He looked at the monitor.
Her pulse had begun to rise.
“Tell me.”
“I told him he had touched a family the underworld had been ordered to leave alone.”
The nurse stopped pretending not to listen.
Emily’s face emptied.
For years, she had accepted the omissions because they came wrapped in ordinary explanations. The late-night calls were clients with delayed flights. The men who waited outside restaurants were drivers. The envelopes in the locked desk contained payroll. Vincent’s ability to make a landlord return a deposit within an hour was a favor from someone at city hall.
She had not been stupid.
She had been busy loving him.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
Vincent pulled the chair upright and sat, though she had not invited him.
“It means I have influence over people who should not be near you.”
“You’re a chauffeur.”
“I drive when I need to be seen driving.”
The nurse quietly left the room.
Emily stared at him.
“What are you?”
His hands rested on his knees. Tattoos crossed his knuckles in black lines she had traced with her finger on their wedding night. He had told her each mark belonged to a younger version of himself he no longer recognized.
Now they looked less like history than credentials.
“I run businesses,” he said.
“What businesses?”
“Transportation. Construction. Clubs. Lending.”
“Illegal lending?”
“Some.”
“Protection?”
“Yes.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Guns?”
He hesitated.
She turned her face away.
“Violence?”
Another pause.
“Sometimes.”
Emily looked at the wall.
A television bracket hung above an empty shelf. Someone had removed the remote, perhaps because patients threw them.
“How many people know?”
“Enough.”
“Did Robert know?”
“He suspected.”
“Did you marry me because of Dad’s money?”
Vincent’s head lifted.
“No.”
“You lied about everything else.”
“Not everything.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me sort the real parts from the fake parts while my son is in intensive care.”
He closed his mouth.
Emily pressed her palm against her abdomen and breathed through a wave of pain.
“I asked you once,” she said. “Remember? After that man followed us out of the restaurant. I asked if you were in trouble.”
“You were pregnant.”
“That wasn’t an answer then either.”
“I wanted you safe.”
“You wanted me uninformed.”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt more than another lie would have.
Emily’s eyes filled.
“You decided ignorance was safety because it made your life easier.”
Vincent looked down.
“No,” he said. “It made my life possible.”
“That’s worse.”
Dr. Hart arrived with a wheelchair twenty minutes later. She looked from Emily’s face to Vincent’s and understood enough not to ask.
Noah remained inside the warmer, but his color had improved. The flushed red had softened. His chest rose more evenly beneath the onesie. A tiny sensor wrapped around his foot glowed through the blanket.
Emily pressed both hands to the clear wall.
“Can I touch him?”
Dr. Hart opened a side port.
“One hand. Slowly.”
Emily slid her fingers inside and rested them against Noah’s ankle.
His foot twitched.
She bent forward until her forehead touched the plastic.
Vincent stood behind the wheelchair.
He kept both hands at his sides.
Dr. Hart checked the monitor and said, “His repeat level is lower. That is what we wanted to see.”
“Is there damage?” Emily asked.
“We don’t have evidence of permanent injury. He had periods of low oxygen before arrival. We are watching him closely.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I won’t promise what I cannot know yet.”
Emily nodded.
She appreciated Dr. Hart because the doctor refused to use hope as a sedative.
“Did he suffer?” Emily asked.
Dr. Hart took a breath.
“He was in distress.”
Emily’s fingers tightened around Noah’s ankle.
Vincent looked away.
“Who would do this?” she whispered.
Dr. Hart glanced toward the nurses’ station. “The police are investigating. The bottle and medication were preserved. Blood samples were collected. There will be questions about who prepared what, when everyone arrived, and what was in the apartment.”
“Robert made a bottle,” Emily said.
Vincent’s eyes returned to her.
“I told him not to,” she continued. “He said I was being precious. Diane said I should be grateful.”
“What happened after?” Dr. Hart asked.
“I drank the tea.” Emily squeezed her eyes shut. “Noah cried. I remember Diane holding him. I remember saying she was supporting his head wrong.”
Her breath caught.
“Then?”
“I was on the floor.”
“That may be the last clear memory,” Dr. Hart said. “Do not force it.”
Emily looked at Vincent.
“I called you.”
“At three fourteen.”
“What did I say?”
“You said they were there.”
“No. Later.”
“You didn’t reach me later.”
“I called someone.”
Vincent pulled out his phone.
There was no later call from Emily.
“Maybe I tried,” she said.
Dr. Hart rested one hand on the wheelchair. “Memory can be fragmented after a drug exposure. It may return, or parts may not.”
Emily watched Noah’s chest rise.
“What happens to us now?”
May you like
The doctor understood that the question was larger than medicine.
“Today,” she said, “you stay here. Your son stays here. You both recover. Let the rest move at the speed it has to move.”
