Chapter 2 - “Yes.”
“You can’t—”
“I’m not firing you. I’m giving you a paid day.”
“I don’t want special treatment.”
“Then consider it overdue overtime.”
“I’m salaried.”
“Then consider me temporarily creative.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
He saw it.
So did I.
The elevator opened.
Before I stepped inside, Adrian said, “Come to the estate when you wake up. Not at six. Not at seven. When you wake up.”
“I need to come anyway. Ethan expects me.”
“Ethan will survive breakfast with me.”
“That depends what you cook.”
“I employ people who cook.”
“Then he’ll definitely survive.”
The doors began closing.
For the first time that night, Adrian smiled.
It was small and tired and surprisingly human.
“Good night, Claire.”
By the time I reached my apartment, dawn was turning the windows gray.
I slept four hours.
At ten thirty-seven, my phone rang.
It was Mrs. Alvarez.
“Do not panic,” she said immediately.
That guaranteed that I panicked.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Where’s Ethan?”
“Beside me.”
“Why are you calling?”
“Because he insists you forgot something.”
A small voice shouted in the background.
“My picture!”
I closed my eyes.
The drawing.
Ethan had spent nearly an hour the day before drawing everyone he believed belonged at Sunday breakfast.
Himself.
His father.
Mrs. Alvarez.
Me.
And Lily, whom he had never met but had apparently decided belonged there because I talked about her.
“I’ll get it later.”
“He says it is urgent.”
“It is not urgent.”
Another muffled protest.
Mrs. Alvarez lowered her voice.
“His father is in his office.”
“I’m coming.”
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“Eat first.”
I looked at the empty kitchen counter.
“I will.”
“You are a terrible liar.”
“I’ll buy something.”
“That is acceptable.”
An hour later, I arrived at the Mercer estate carrying a bagel and the determination to behave as though my employer had not discovered the most private part of my life in a hospital hallway.
Ethan ran toward me before I had removed my coat.
“You forgot our family!”
He thrust the drawing into my hands.
“I see that.”
“You left it on the piano.”
“I’m sorry.”
He pointed proudly.
“That’s Daddy. That’s me. That’s you. That’s Mrs. Alvarez. And that’s Lily.”
His version of my sister had green hair.
“Why is Lily green?”
“I ran out of yellow.”
“That explains absolutely nothing.”
He giggled.
Adrian appeared in the doorway.
No suit.
No tie.
Just a pale blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms.
He looked different in daylight.
Less like the man whispered about along the waterfront.
More like a father who had slept even less than I had.
“Ethan,” he said, “Mrs. Alvarez has cookies cooling in the kitchen.”
Ethan’s eyes widened.
“At eleven?”
“Apparently civilization has collapsed.”
Ethan disappeared.
I held up the drawing.
“You bribed him.”
“Efficiently.”
Then Adrian’s expression became serious.
“I found something.”
He motioned toward his office.
I hesitated before following.
The room had dark bookshelves, tall windows, and a desk so organized it always made me nervous.
A folder waited in the center.
Adrian didn’t sit.
Neither did I.
“This is your father’s employment record.”
“I don’t want to read private personnel information.”
“It concerns you.”
“How?”
He opened the folder.
There were ordinary pages first.
Employment dates.
Promotions.
Insurance forms.
Then an envelope.
Old.
Cream-colored.
My name was written across the front.
CLAIRE HALE.
My heart stopped.
I knew the handwriting.
It was my father’s.
I reached for the envelope.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was attached to a dormant benevolence file in company archives.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You opened it?”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“Really?”
“It has your name on it.”
My fingers trembled against the paper.
The seal was still intact.
“Why would my father leave me a letter at your company?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“That isn’t the only question.”
He turned one more page toward me.
At the top was a form dated eight years earlier.
Mercer Employee Benevolence Trust.
Family Medical Assistance Request.
Applicant: Thomas Hale.
Dependent: Lily Hale.
I stopped breathing.
Lily had first become ill eight years ago.
My father had told us insurance was handling everything.
He had taken extra shifts.
He had sold his truck.
And apparently, without ever telling either of us, he had asked the Mercer company for help.
I scanned the form.
At the bottom, beside the application status, was one handwritten word.
DENIED.
No explanation.
No signature.
Adrian spoke quietly.
“I reviewed every board record from that year this morning.”
I looked up.
“And?”
“There is no record that the trust committee ever saw this application.”
The office seemed suddenly too still.
“You think it disappeared?”
“I think somebody received it.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
My eyes returned to my father’s unopened letter.
All those years, I had believed the hardest truth was that Dad had simply run out of options.
Now I was holding proof that he had tried one more door.
A door belonging to the family whose house I entered every morning.
A door that, for reasons neither Adrian nor I understood, had never opened.
May you like
And inside the envelope was a message my father had apparently intended for me to read.
Eight years too late.
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