Chapter 11 - THE COST OF KNOWING
Emma did not ask Nathan to leave immediately.
That surprised both of them.
Instead, she sat back down.
"Why would Olivia download my claims?"
Nathan stared at the ultrasound photograph between them.
"Counsel doesn't know."
"What do you think?"
"I think she wanted information."
"That's not an answer."
"I know."
Emma stood and walked toward the bookstore window.
Rain slid down the glass.
"She watched me at the gala."
Nathan said nothing.
"She offered me champagne twice."
His face tightened.
"Emma—"
"I'm not saying she tried to hurt the baby."
"I know."
"I'm saying she knew."
Nathan rose but stayed several feet away.
"Most likely."
Emma turned.
"And she still danced with you in front of me."
Nathan closed his eyes.
"Yes."
"She wanted me to see it."
"Probably."
"And you?"
His eyes opened.
"I was careless enough to help her."
Emma's anger flared.
"Careless."
"That's not meant to make it smaller."
"It sounds small."
Nathan nodded.
"Then use the bigger word."
Emma stared at him.
"Cruel."
He swallowed.
"Okay."
"You were cruel."
"Yes."
The agreement did not satisfy her.
Nothing would have.
June emerged from the back room.
"We close in ten."
Emma nodded.
Nathan picked up his bag.
"I'll go."
"Wait."
He stopped.
Emma rubbed her forehead.
"I don't want to talk anymore."
"Okay."
"But I don't want you flying back tonight either. You look exhausted."
Nathan almost smiled.
"That sounds dangerously like concern."
Emma glared.
"Don't make me regret it."
"Sorry."
"Stay at the hotel."
"I will."
"Do not come back tomorrow unless I ask."
"Understood."
He left.
June locked the door behind him.
"Well?"
Emma stared at the rain.
"He listened."
"Low bar."
"Very."
"Still useful when someone clears it."
Emma laughed bitterly.
"You and my therapist would get along."
In New York, the investigation moved faster once Emma's medical data appeared in the audit.
The foundation's access had been legitimate for narrow insurance coordination.
Olivia's use was not.
She claimed she had been checking whether Emma's absences from foundation events were health-related.
Counsel did not believe that explanation.
Nathan did not need to decide whether he believed it.
The board terminated Olivia for misuse of confidential information and undisclosed vendor conflicts.
Nathan refused to sign a private settlement that would require silence.
"She'll sue," counsel warned.
"Then she sues."
"This could become public."
"It already hurt Emma in private."
"Nathan, don't turn accountability into self-destruction."
Nathan looked at the lawyer.
"I'm not. I'm refusing to purchase a cleaner story than the facts."
The board recovered part of the vendor money from Olivia's brother's firm.
No one went to prison.
No empire collapsed.
That disappointed the tabloids.
Real misconduct was often less cinematic than people wanted.
It was still misconduct.
Nathan spent the next month preparing for fatherhood.
Not publicly.
No magazine profiles.
No interviews about redemption.
He attended a Saturday parenting class in Manhattan where nobody cared who he was.
The instructor handed him a plastic baby doll.
"Diaper."
Nathan stared at it.
"That's the assignment?"
"Are you negotiating with a diaper?"
The room laughed.
Nathan smiled.
"Apparently not."
He put the diaper on backward.
An exhausted twenty-two-year-old father beside him fixed it.
"Tabs go back."
"Thank you."
"First kid?"
"Yes."
"You'll mess up a lot."
Nathan looked at him.
"I already have."
The man shrugged.
"Then you're ahead of schedule."
At Eleanor's townhouse, Nathan assembled a crib in the guest room.
It took four hours.
Eleanor photographed it when he accidentally built one side upside down.
"Delete that."
"Absolutely not."
"Mom."
"I need joy somewhere."
Nathan sat on the floor among screws.
"What if she never lets me be part of this?"
Eleanor lowered the phone.
"Do you mean the baby or Emma?"
"Both."
"The baby is different. You have responsibilities there whether the marriage survives."
"And Emma?"
Eleanor sat beside him.
"You stop treating her return as the prize for good behavior."
Nathan looked at the half-built crib.
"That's harder than it sounds."
"Good."
He groaned.
"You people need a new word."
Three weeks later, Emma received the formal notice that Olivia had been terminated.
She read it once.
Then put it away.
She felt no triumph.
Olivia had become too central in Emma's mind for too long.
Blaming Olivia for everything would have been comforting.
It would also have been false.
Nathan created the empty space.
Olivia stepped into it.
Emma lived beside it in silence.
All three facts could exist without carrying equal responsibility.
That evening, Emma texted Nathan.
I received the notice.
Thank you for handling the privacy issue properly.
Nathan answered:
You do not have to thank me for doing what should have been done from the beginning.
Emma stared at the sentence.
Then another message appeared.
Also, I put the crib together.
Mostly.
Emma smiled.
Before she could stop herself, she typed:
Mostly?
Nathan sent a photograph.
The crib was clearly backward.
Emma laughed so hard Nora kicked.
Then she realized she had called the baby Nora in her head.
The name had appeared without planning.
Nora.
She wrote it in the yellow notebook.
Then beneath it:
Nora Elise.
For the first time, Emma allowed herself to imagine introducing her daughter to Nathan by name.
---
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