Chapter 7
I didn't knock when I got to her house. The side door off the columned porch was unlocked like it always was, and the light was on in the dressing suite at the back.
Helena was sitting at her vanity when I came in. She hadn't changed out of the champagne gown but she'd taken off the pearl necklace. It was coiled on the glass tray next to her makeup. The bruise on her left cheek looked darker under the bright vanity bulbs, a reddish-purple edge catching the light every time she turned her head. She saw me in the mirror before she turned around.
"Nora," she said. She didn't sound surprised. "I told you we'd talk tomorrow."
I didn't take off my coat. I pulled my phone from my pocket and I'd folded the letters Roman had given me into my bag, the ones he'd written to Sophie that had never been opened. My hand was shaking but I kept it at my side.
"I need you to look at something now," I said.
She stood slowly. The suite smelled like her hairspray and the fresh flowers from the gala that her assistant must have already brought home and set on the dresser. The chandelier in the hallway outside threw a warm stripe across the carpet.
I laid my phone flat on the vanity. On it were the screenshots Roman had forwarded me in the parking lot after we'd left the ballroom. Transfer confirmations. Same amount every month on the same date. Fifty thousand dollars. Recipient account with Helena's name and the foundation's name alternating every few months, going back three years without a single gap.
"Tell me what I'm looking at," I said.
Helena glanced down. Her breathing didn't change. She picked up a cotton pad like she was going to take her makeup off, then set it back down.
"Where did you get these," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Roman sent them. He showed me his bank."
For a few seconds the only sound was the air handler humming in the ceiling. Helena folded her hands in front of her.
"Yes," she said quietly. "I received the money."
The words landed flat. I'd expected a denial, some explanation that the screenshots were fake. She just said it.
"I received every transfer," she said. She looked at me directly then. "And I used it to keep you and Sophie safe. And to keep this family from collapsing."
I stared at her. "Safe from what?"
"From him." She said it without raising her voice. "From that life. You didn't see what his business was becoming three years ago, Nora. The people who came to the house. The calls at night. I made a decision. I told you he'd stopped sending because if you knew he was still sending that kind of money, you'd have gone back to him. And Sophie would have grown up thinking that world was normal."
I pulled the letters out next. Three envelopes, creases soft from being carried. Sophie's name on each in Roman's handwriting. The postmarks from two and three years ago.
"He wrote to her," I said. "You told her he was dead."
Helena's eyes flicked to the envelopes but she didn't touch them.
"I told her what she needed to hear at five years old to stop asking for a man who couldn't be a father then," she said. "You were drowning. You don't remember how bad it was. I kept the foundation alive. I kept the house you live in. I kept her in that school where the other parents don't ask questions. That money didn't disappear. It paid for stability."
"That money was for us," I said. My voice was thinner than I wanted it to be. "Not the foundation gala. Not the columns out front."
She stepped closer. I could see the fine beading on her gown and the way her hands tightened together.
"If you go after this," she said, and her tone finally dropped, low and even, "you need to understand what happens. That house you and Sophie are in is in the foundation's name. Her tuition at St. James is paid through the foundation. Your community there, the other mothers, the board - all of it is the same account. If you let him turn this into a fight, if you bring lawyers or police into this, the accounts freeze. We lose the house. She loses her school mid-year. You really want to do that to her to prove a point about where a wire transfer went?"
I didn't answer right away. My mouth was dry. I could hear Roman's voice in the hallway then. He hadn't come into the suite, but he'd followed me to the house and was waiting just outside the double doors. I could see his shadow through the frosted glass, his shoulders still, his hands at his sides.
Helena saw me look.
"He can't stay here," she whispered. "You let him back in and he will want more than money, Nora. He will want to make decisions for her."
I picked up my phone. The screen had gone dark. I turned it over.
"I asked where it went," I said. "You didn't answer that."
"I told you," she said. "I protected you."
She didn't move to show me anything else. No ledger, no statements, no folder. She just stood between me and the vanity, her cheek turned slightly so the bruise wasn't in the direct light. I realized she wasn't going to explain it, and I wasn't going to ask with him standing outside.
May you like
I slid the letters back into my bag. My fingers brushed the edge of the pearl necklace on the tray. I left it where it was.
When I opened the suite doors, Roman was exactly where I'd left him, half a step back from the threshold like he was trying not to trespass. He looked at my face once and didn't ask what she'd said. That was enough to tell me he'd heard most of it through the doors anyway.
