Chapter 2
“No,” I said. “I didn’t bring them because I never wanted a real marriage.”
Meredith’s expression didn’t soften. “Then why did you bring them?”
Because I had decided what she wanted without asking. Because money was easier to offer than the truth. I looked down at the pages and saw my thumb had bent the corner of the settlement.
“I thought you’d agreed to marry me for the rescue money,” I said. “I thought you wanted the business saved and the rest of our lives left alone.”
Her face went still. “Graham told me you wanted exactly that.”
I looked up.
“He said you’d insisted we keep separate lives,” she continued. “That you wanted a wife in name only. He said you didn’t expect love, and you didn’t want me to expect it either.”
The rain tapped at the windows. Somewhere in the house, the heating system clicked on, then hummed into the silence.
“He told me you’d agreed to the marriage because your family needed the money,” I said. “That you understood it as a business arrangement. Nothing more.”
Meredith gave a small, disbelieving laugh. “So we both spent three years trying not to ask for something the other person supposedly didn’t want.”
“I did.”
The admission came out plain and ugly. I couldn’t make it sound better without making it less true.
“I told myself I was respecting your wishes,” I said. “But I never checked whether those wishes were yours.”
Meredith glanced at the papers. “And this was supposed to be respectful?”
“No. It was supposed to be kind.” I stopped, hearing how convenient that sounded. “That’s what I told myself.”
“Kind for whom?”
I had no answer that didn’t make me look away. I lowered the pages onto the coffee table. They landed beside the cold tea with a dry, papery slap.
Meredith watched my hands retreat. “I thought you wanted me gone.”
“I thought you wanted out.”
“I never said that.”
“Neither did I.”
Her eyes shone, but she didn’t wipe them this time. “We let Graham speak for us.”
The doorway shifted. Eleanor stepped into the room, her careful composure gone tight around the mouth.
“You let him,” she said. “And I let him keep doing it.”
Meredith turned. “You knew?”
“I knew he was telling you different things.” Eleanor’s gaze moved between us. “I didn’t know how much of each story he’d built, or how far he’d carried it.”
“But you knew enough to stay quiet,” Meredith said.
The hurt in her voice landed harder than anger would have. Eleanor accepted it without flinching.
“Yes,” she said. “I did.”
Meredith folded her arms, as though holding herself together. “Why?”
Eleanor took a breath. Her fingers twisted around the ring on her right hand. “Graham said the arrangement was the only way to save the company. He said if you two got tangled up in feelings, somebody would make a reckless decision and everybody would pay for it.”
“Everybody meaning the people who worked there?” I asked.
“Meaning all of us, he said.” Eleanor’s eyes dropped briefly to the divorce papers. “I thought he was trying to hold the family together. I didn’t understand that he was making sure neither of you would ask the other what was true.”
A question rose in me: what had Graham needed us not to ask? I held it back. Eleanor had just admitted to a betrayal, and I could see the effort it took to remain in the room.
Meredith didn’t spare her the difficult part.
“You watched me believe my husband didn’t want me.”
“I did,” Eleanor whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“And you watched him believe I’d married him for a check.”
Eleanor shut her eyes for a moment. “Yes.”
The room seemed smaller than it had a few minutes earlier. My instinct was to take control—to turn the hurt into a plan, the plan into a list of tasks, the list into something I could complete. For once, I couldn’t find a decision that would make the people in the room feel less wounded.
Meredith looked at me. “Did you want a real marriage?”
I met her gaze. “I wanted one. I just didn’t believe you did.”
“That’s not the same as showing me.”
“No.” I forced myself not to reach for an explanation. “It isn’t.”
Her mouth tightened. For a moment, I thought she might turn away. Instead, she looked down at the papers, then at the space between us.
“I don’t know what I believe yet,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’m not ready to pretend that hearing this fixes three years.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
The honesty didn’t mend anything. But it left the door open, and neither of us rushed to close it.
Eleanor pressed a hand to her chest. “Thomas tried to tell me Graham was changing the terms of what you’d agreed to. He said he’d left something behind—something that would show what the original arrangement was supposed to be.”
Meredith’s focus sharpened. “What did he leave?”
“A letter. I never found it.”
“You said he left it,” I said. “Did he tell you where?”
“He told me where he’d hidden it. I was too frightened to look.”
Meredith’s face hardened. “Frightened of what?”
“Of Graham. Of being wrong. Of what it would mean if Thomas had been right and I’d helped Graham keep the two of you apart.” Eleanor looked from her daughter to me. “I can’t undo that. But I can take you to it.”
I glanced at the clock. The signing was scheduled for the morning. Until tonight, that had seemed like the last item on a list. Now it felt like a deadline someone else had set for us.
“Where?” Meredith asked.
“The plant. Thomas kept an old tool chest there, back when he still worked on the floor himself. He said the letter was inside it.”
“Then we go tonight,” I said.
Meredith’s eyes flicked to mine. “We go together.”
There was no tenderness in the words, not yet. There was a boundary, clearly drawn, and an invitation to stand on the same side of it.
“Together,” I said.
Eleanor nodded, but she didn’t move. Her gaze had gone to the window, where rain blurred the lights along the street.
“Mom?” Meredith asked.
“I was just thinking.” Eleanor reached into her pocket and drew out her phone. “Graham called me earlier. He asked whether Thomas had left any papers at the plant.”
My stomach tightened. “What did you tell him?”
“That I didn’t know.” She checked the screen, then went very still. “He just messaged again.”
Meredith stepped closer. “What does it say?”
Eleanor read it once, then turned the phone toward us.
Graham’s message was short: Don’t go looking for Thomas’s things tonight.
May you like
Meredith’s face lost color.
Eleanor looked at the papers on the table, then at the three of us gathered around the phone. “I don’t know how he guessed,” she said. “But he may already know we’re looking.”
