Chương 3
Graham raised his head. “You never told me that.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Tuesday night. You were answering email.”
His mouth opened, then closed.
“You said, ‘She’s anxious about the baby. Don’t take every sentence literally.’”
The monitor recorded another contraction. Evelyn watched the line rise on the screen. She breathed in through her nose, held for a count of two, and released slowly. The pressure gathered around her spine.
Graham moved toward the bed.
She lifted a hand.
He stopped.
When the contraction passed, sweat cooled along her hairline.
Dr. Salazar asked, “Has your mother-in-law hurt you before tonight?”
Evelyn rubbed the edge of the hospital blanket between her fingers.
“She grabbed my wrist three weeks ago. There was a bruise. I took a picture.”
Graham’s face emptied.
“Where is it?”
“On my phone.”
“Why didn’t you show me?”
“I was going to.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Evelyn looked at him. “I didn’t know whether you would protect me or explain her to me.”
The room became very quiet.
Outside the curtain, a nurse laughed at something near the medication station. A cart rattled past. Somewhere down the hall, an infant cried with astonishing anger.
Graham turned away and put both hands on the windowsill. The glass reflected the white hospital room and a dark square of rain beyond it.
Dr. Salazar stood. “A social worker can speak with you. You don’t have to decide anything this minute. Right now we’re going to focus on labor and keep you both safe.”
After she left, Graham remained at the window.
Evelyn watched the back of his suit jacket. A dark patch from the rain had dried unevenly across one shoulder. His burgundy tie hung loose, the knot halfway down his shirt.
“Say it,” she said.
He turned.
“Whatever you’re arranging in your head. Say it.”
“I’m trying not to make this about me.”
“That’s new.”
The cruelty of the sentence landed. She regretted it and did not take it back.
Graham pulled the chair closer but did not sit until she nodded.
“I saw her foot on you,” he said. “I saw you on the floor. I’m not explaining that.”
“You explained everything before it.”
“Yes.”
He spoke the word quietly.
Another call lit his phone. This time the screen showed MARCUS REED, his chief operating officer.
Graham declined it.
“She’ll call the board,” he said. “She’ll say I’m unstable, that I abandoned tomorrow’s vote, that you created a scene.”
“You’re already talking about the company.”
“I’m telling you what she’ll do.”
“No. You’re making a list because lists make you feel less afraid.”
He stared at her.
Evelyn almost smiled. Under other circumstances, he might have admired the accuracy.
Instead he placed the phone facedown on the tray table.
“What do you need from me?”
She considered the question.
“I need you not to decide what I need before I finish saying it.”
“All right.”
“I need you not to call your mother’s lawyer.”
His eyes shifted.
“You already did?”
“No.”
“You thought about it.”
“Yes.”
“To protect me?”
“To stop her from shaping the story before we understand what happened.”
“I understand what happened.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “You’re right.”
“I need somewhere else to go after this.”
“We’ll go to the city apartment.”
“She has keys.”
“I’ll change the locks.”
“She owns it through the family trust.”
Graham sat back.
The fact had existed all along, but they had rarely spoken it aloud. The Manhattan apartment, the mansion in Westchester, the house in Palm Beach, the jet share, even the artwork Evelyn disliked in the dining room—none of it belonged simply to Graham. Lenora controlled the trusts established after Graham’s father died. She had arranged their life so thoroughly that comfort and permission had become difficult to separate.
“We can get a hotel,” Graham said.
“I don’t want to hide in a hotel suite your mother’s office pays for.”
“I’ll pay for it.”
“With which account?”
He looked toward the plastic bag again.
Evelyn’s savings were modest and untouched, left from six years teaching music at a public elementary school in Queens. Graham had never forbidden her to work. He had only said there was no need, and then the pregnancy had been difficult, and then Lenora had needed help planning the foundation gala, and somehow the direct deposit from Evelyn’s last paycheck had become a small relic she checked on her phone when she wanted proof that she had once belonged to herself.
“My sister has a spare room,” she said.
“June’s apartment has two bedrooms and three children.”
“Two children.”
“I thought—”
“You always think she has three.”
A breath of laughter escaped him before he could stop it.
Evelyn laughed too, then grimaced as another contraction began.
Graham moved beside the bed. This time she let him hold her hand.
Labor erased conversation by degrees. It gave them ninety seconds in which nothing mattered but breath and pressure, then returned the room to them altered.
Afterward, Graham said, “We’ll find somewhere that isn’t hers.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“We?”
“If you’ll let me come.”
She did not answer.
Near midnight, June arrived carrying a canvas tote bag, a phone charger, two pairs of socks, a hairbrush, and a squashed turkey sandwich wrapped in wax paper.
She was four years older than Evelyn and looked almost nothing like her. June had their father’s broad face, their mother’s narrow shoulders, and a permanent expression of mild suspicion developed through years of teaching eighth-grade science.
She stopped beside the bed and looked at Graham.
“Outside,” she said.
Graham stood.
“June,” Evelyn murmured.
“I’m not punching him. The hospital has cameras.”
“I’m aware,” Graham said.
“That wasn’t reassurance.”
He left anyway.
June waited until the curtain closed. Then she put the tote bag down, pushed Evelyn’s hair back from her face, and kissed her forehead.
May you like
Evelyn began to cry.
It was not dramatic. No sound came at first. Tears slid into her ears while June stood with one hand on her head.
