Chương 8
“What jam?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“No,” Eleanor said coldly. “It does not.”
Something in me became very still.
I shifted my weight onto my left foot.
The heel of my right shoe rested near the corner of the glass table.
Julian extended his hand again.
“The card, Maya.”
I looked down at it.
A hand I had held in hospitals, airports, restaurants, and bed.
A hand that had rested on my stomach the night we learned we were having a baby.
A hand that now waited for access to everything I had built.
“I’m done,” I said.
Relief flickered across his face.
He thought I meant I would comply.
“Good,” he whispered. “Good. Just give me the bag.”
He leaned closer.
I raised my right foot and drove the narrow heel of my shoe into the corner of the glass.
The first strike made a sharp crack.
Julian flinched and turned his head.
I stamped again.
The tabletop fractured with a violent popping sound, breaking into a web of glittering cubes. One edge collapsed onto the stone base. Invoices slid into the gap. The glass of lemon water tipped and shattered on the floor.
Eleanor screamed.
Not from injury.
From shock.
Julian spun toward the table.
I stepped back, unlocked my phone, and pressed the emergency-call button.
He saw what I was doing.
“Maya.”
I moved behind the armchair, keeping it between us.
The dispatcher answered.
“Emergency services. What is your location?”
Julian lunged one step.
I shouted the address.
He stopped.
The dispatcher asked me to repeat it. I did, slower, forcing the words past my breathing.
Eleanor recovered first.
“She is not in danger,” she called. “She broke a table.”
“Ma’am,” the dispatcher said through the phone, “are you able to move to a secure room?”
“No. The exits are blocked. My fiancé locked the front door. His mother grabbed and pushed me. I’m pregnant.”
Julian’s face drained.
“Tell them you’re not injured.”
I kept my eyes on him.
The dispatcher’s voice remained steady.
“Are there weapons in the home?”
“I don’t know.”
“There are no weapons,” Eleanor snapped.
“Do not answer for her,” the dispatcher said.
Eleanor stared at the phone as though it had insulted her personally.
Julian lowered his hands.
“May, please.”
I heard movement outside. My father was arguing with someone near the gate. Another man said he had instructions. My mother began shouting that she could hear breaking glass.
The dispatcher asked whether I was bleeding.
“I don’t think so.”
“Any abdominal pain?”
“Tightness. I was pushed into a wall.”
Julian shook his head.
“You stumbled.”
I pointed the phone toward him.
“He is now denying it.”
“I did not deny—”
“Sir,” the dispatcher said, her voice suddenly louder, “step away from her.”
He looked at the phone.
The command, coming from someone he could not charm with eye contact, seemed to unsettle him.
He stepped back.
Eleanor did not.
“This is outrageous,” she said. “She is destroying property and manufacturing an assault because she does not want to meet a financial obligation.”
The dispatcher asked, “Who is speaking?”
“Eleanor Vale. This is my home.”
“Ms. Vale, remain where you are and do not approach the caller.”
“I will not be ordered around in my own house by a telephone operator.”
“Mother,” Julian said.
The word came out strained.
Eleanor turned on him.
“This is your fault. You let it go too far.”
I watched his face.
He looked at her, then at me, then toward the door.
The alliance between them shifted by an inch.
Not enough to help me.
Enough to make both afraid.
Outside, my father shouted, “I’m calling the police.”
“They are already coming!” I yelled.
A silence followed.
Then my mother’s voice, thinner through the door.
“Maya, are you hurt?”
“I’m okay.”
It was automatic.
I had been telling her I was okay since I was fifteen.
The dispatcher said, “Officers are on the way. Do not end the call.”
Eleanor paced toward the windows.
Her composure was coming apart in small places. One hand repeatedly smoothed the front of her dress. Her shoulders had risen. She looked at the shattered table, the water spreading across the rug, the wet invoices curling at the edges.
“Do you know what you have done?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You have called armed officers to a private family disagreement.”
“You locked the door.”
“Julian locked the door.”
He looked at her.
She had separated herself from him without hesitation.
“You told me to,” he said.
“I told you not to let her leave before we reached an understanding. I did not tell you to imprison her.”
My skin prickled.
Julian stared at his mother.
“You said to secure the situation.”
“That does not mean physically lock a pregnant woman in a room.”
“You stood there.”
“I told you this would happen if you handled it emotionally.”
He gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“Me?”
The dispatcher asked me to describe them.
I did.
Julian, thirty-seven, white shirt, navy suit, no weapon visible.
Eleanor, sixty-two, cream dress, approximately five foot seven, no weapon visible.
Eleanor’s head snapped toward me.
“Do not describe me as though I’m a criminal.”
“Stay back,” I said.
My voice shook.
I hated that it shook.
Julian heard it too. For a moment, something like shame crossed his face.
Then his phone rang again.
He looked down.
The lender.
Five o’clock approaching.
He answered.
“Not now,” he said.
A voice spoke rapidly through the phone.
Julian turned away from us and lowered his voice.
“I understand the deadline. I’m resolving it.”
I almost smiled at the word.
Resolving.
His entire life was a series of problems that existed because other people had not yet obeyed him.
The person on the call said something that made his shoulders stiffen.
“No, do not file.”
A pause.
“I said I have the funds.”
I stared at him.
He turned and found me watching.
May you like
The lie had nowhere to go.
“I need thirty minutes,” he told the caller. “No. Listen to me. The transfer is being authorized.”
