Chương 10
“No.”
“Would you tell me if you did?”
He considered too long.
Emily pointed her fork at him.
“That pause was suspicious.”
“I’m trying not to answer too quickly.”
“That’s annoying too.”
“I cannot win.”
“Correct.”
He smiled.
Then he said, “I don’t regret giving it to you. I regret doing it without talking to you.”
Emily looked around.
The penthouse had become familiar again.
The cream sofa had been cleaned.
The silver tray was back in a cabinet.
The navy baby bag lived permanently by the door.
The ivory suitcase remained in the hall closet.
Emily had not used it.
“What if I sell it?”
Daniel stopped.
There.
A real reaction.
Not performative.
Not noble.
He looked genuinely unhappy.
“You love this place,” she said.
“Yes.”
“It belonged to your father.”
“Yes.”
“He gave it to you.”
“Yes.”
“And now it’s mine.”
“Yes.”
She waited.
Daniel rubbed his jaw.
“Do you want to sell it?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
Emily smiled faintly.
“That hurt, didn’t it?”
“A little.”
“You still said it.”
“I am evolving approximately five inches.”
She laughed.
They did not sell.
Not then.
Emily’s therapy appointments continued.
So did Daniel’s.
Margaret began joint counseling with Daniel after several false starts.
The first therapist refused to continue after Margaret repeatedly tried to turn the sessions into a debate over who had factual authority.
The second lasted longer.
Daniel sometimes came home angry.
Sometimes sad.
Once he came home laughing.
“What happened?” Emily asked.
“My mother told the therapist that our family doesn’t avoid emotion.”
Emily waited.
Daniel started laughing again.
“She said we schedule it.”
Emily laughed so hard she woke Noah.
Neither thought that was funny.
At six months old, Noah had Daniel’s dark hair and Emily’s habit of frowning when concentrating.
Margaret had not seen him in person since the blizzard.
That became the next problem.
The legal restrictions had been modified enough that contact could occur if Emily agreed and if it happened under clearly defined circumstances.
Nobody pressured Emily directly.
Which somehow made the pressure harder.
Daniel never asked.
Rebecca did.
“Do you want her to know him?”
Emily was sitting on the back porch of Rebecca’s Oregon house while Noah chewed the corner of a cloth book.
“I don’t know.”
“Then don’t decide.”
“That seems too easy.”
“Not everything needs to be difficult to count.”
Emily watched Noah drop the book, stare at it, then look personally betrayed.
Rebecca picked it up.
“Again?”
Noah grinned.
Rebecca dropped it.
Noah laughed.
Humans apparently enjoyed control from infancy.
Emily leaned back.
“I’m afraid if I let her see him, she’ll think everything is forgiven.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
“Then tell her.”
“What if she gets angry?”
Rebecca stared at her.
“She already got arrested.”
Emily covered her mouth.
“That’s horrible.”
“It’s also statistically relevant.”
Emily laughed despite herself.
She returned to Colorado two days later with an idea she disliked.
That usually meant it was worth considering.
She told Daniel she was willing to meet Margaret.
Without Noah.
Daniel blinked.
“You’re sure?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“I want to see who she is when the baby isn’t in the room.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“Where?”
“Not here.”
“Good.”
“You agree?”
“I don’t think bringing her back here first is a good idea.”
Emily looked at him.
“Thank you for having an opinion.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
They met at a quiet hotel restaurant in Denver.
Neutral ground.
Public enough to feel safe.
Private enough that strangers would not listen unless Margaret raised her voice.
She did not.
Emily arrived first.
Margaret came five minutes early anyway.
She wore a gray suit and small pearl earrings.
No brooch.
When she saw Emily, she stopped.
For a moment they simply looked at each other.
Margaret said, “You look well.”
Emily nearly laughed.
Instead she said, “Please don’t evaluate how well I look.”
Margaret’s mouth tightened.
Then she nodded.
“Fair.”
They sat.
A waiter asked whether they wanted sparkling or still water.
The question felt offensively complicated.
“Still,” Emily said.
“Sparkling,” Margaret said at the same time.
The waiter looked between them.
“Both,” Margaret said.
Emily almost smiled.
Nobody mentioned Noah for the first ten minutes.
Margaret asked whether Emily was still doing freelance architectural work.
Emily said yes, slowly.
One residential project.
Mostly during naps.
Margaret asked whether she enjoyed it.
Emily said she did.
Then conversation stopped.
Margaret folded her napkin.
“I have apologized to Daniel.”
“I know.”
“I have apologized through counsel to you.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
Margaret looked toward the window.
Traffic moved along the wet Denver street.
“I don’t know how to speak to you without sounding rehearsed.”
Emily was startled by the sentence.
“Then don’t rehearse.”
Margaret gave her a dry look.
“That is easy advice from someone who has never spent forty years speaking for a company.”
“Try being bad at it.”
Margaret looked almost offended.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
Very softly.
“I was wrong to grab your wrist.”
“Yes.”
“I was wrong to take your phone.”
“Yes.”
“I was wrong to ask staff to remove your belongings.”
“Yes.”
Margaret’s face tightened.
“I was wrong to tell you Daniel never wanted you or Noah.”
Emily held her gaze.
“Why did you say it?”
Margaret looked down.
“Because I thought you would leave if you believed him weak.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“No.”
Margaret folded the napkin smaller.
Emily waited.
Finally Margaret said, “My husband loved Daniel. He also nearly destroyed the company trying to protect him.”
Emily frowned.
“How?”
“When Daniel was twenty-three, he wanted to open a hotel in Lake Tahoe. His father backed him against the board’s advice. The project was badly structured. There were environmental delays, financing problems, everything that could go wrong.”
“Daniel told me about Tahoe.”
“Did he tell you his father personally guaranteed part of the debt?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
May you like
Margaret’s mouth turned bitter.
“The stress did not kill my husband. I’m not foolish enough to say that. But he spent his final year cleaning up that project while hiding how ill he was.”
