Daniel said I should leave New York for a while.
He said seeing me would make things harder for you.
At first, he was kind.
I need you to know that.
He brought groceries. He called doctors. He said he was ashamed of the way you had treated me.
Then things became confusing.
The clinics he arranged canceled my appointments.
A credit card I didn’t recognize appeared in my mail, already active, with my name on it.
Money vanished from my account.
When I asked Daniel, he said divorce settlements often took time to process.
Luke, I know how foolish this sounds.
I should have called someone.
I should have asked for help.
But I was so ashamed.
Everyone thought I had married you for your money.
After the divorce, I could feel people waiting for me to prove them right.
So I said nothing.
I pressed the page flat against my knee.
Elena’s mother had disliked me for the first two years of our marriage because she believed men with private drivers did not understand ordinary sadness.
Her friends had watched me carefully.
The newspapers had called Elena a former gallery assistant who married into one of New York’s most private business families.
I had always told her not to read the comments.
I had never understood that she remembered every one.
“What did Daniel gain?” Marco asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Money?”
“He has more than he could spend.”
“Control?”
“Daniel hates conflict.”
Marco gave me a dry look.
“People don’t always show us what they hate.”
I continued reading.
Two weeks ago, I found a file on Daniel’s tablet.
He left it in my apartment.
I know I shouldn’t have looked.
The folder had your name on it.
Inside were copies of the messages you supposedly sent about me.
They weren’t screenshots, Luke.
They were documents.
Editable documents.
I realized I had never seen the original emails.
Only printed pages Daniel brought me.
I confronted him.
He said I was tired.
He said pregnancy was making me suspicious.
The next morning, the tablet was gone.
So was the card he had given me.
I tried to call your office again.
The number was disconnected.
I stopped reading.
“My office number isn’t disconnected.”
Marco shook his head.
“No.”
“Then she wasn’t calling my office.”
“Probably not.”
A quiet electronic beep came from the monitor beside Elena’s bed.
The screen showed lines and numbers I did not understand.
I suddenly hated every number in the room.
Her blood pressure.
Her heart rate.
The weeks of our child’s life I had missed.
Sixteen weeks.
I had already missed sixteen weeks.
I picked up the third page.
The handwriting changed halfway down.
The letters were less steady.
There is something else.
I think someone has access to my phone.
I bought a new one yesterday with cash.
I am writing this before I try to contact Marco.
I don’t trust Daniel anymore.
But I don’t know whether Daniel is the person behind this.
That is what frightens me.
Because tonight he said something strange.
He said, “Luke has no idea what his father protected him from.”
Your father has been dead for six years.
Why is Daniel talking about him now?
I folded the letter slowly.
My father.
Samuel Mercer had been dead for six years and still managed to dominate every room in which his name was spoken.
He was brilliant.
Demanding.
Generous in ways he tried to hide.
Cold in ways he made no effort to hide at all.
Daniel adored him.
I spent most of my youth trying to escape him.
Our last conversation had been an argument in a private hospital room.
He died the next morning.
I never told Elena what we fought about.
“Marco.”
“Yes.”
“Find Daniel.”
He reached for his phone.
I caught his wrist.
“Quietly.”
His eyes dropped to my hand.
I released him.
“No confrontations,” I said. “No assumptions. I want to hear him explain this.”
Marco studied me for a long moment.
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said tonight.”
Normally, I would have answered.
I didn’t have the energy.
Marco stepped into the hall to make his calls.
I sat alone with Elena.
The anger disappeared faster than I expected.
In its place came something worse.
Guilt.
It settled into every empty space.
I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my knees.
“I’m sorry.”
Elena did not move.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
The sentence sounded pathetic when spoken aloud.
I looked at the bruises on her wrist.
“I made you believe I stopped loving you.”
My throat tightened.
“I thought you’d be angry enough to leave. I thought anger would keep you from looking back.”
Her fingers shifted.
I froze.
“Elena?”
Nothing.
I reached toward her hand, then stopped.
For four years, touching Elena had been instinct.
A hand at the small of her back in crowded rooms.
My fingers brushing her shoulder when I passed behind her chair.
Her bare foot against my ankle while we read in bed.
Now I did not know whether I had the right.
I lowered my hand.
A memory arrived without permission.
Our second anniversary.
Elena barefoot in the kitchen at two in the morning, wearing one of my shirts and attempting to bake a cake because our flight home from London had been delayed.
The cake collapsed in the middle.
She stared into the oven.
“Don’t say anything.”
“I didn’t.”
“Your face is speaking.”
“What is it saying?”
“That you married an incompetent woman.”
I had wrapped my arms around her from behind.
“My face is saying we should order pancakes.”
She turned in my arms.
“Happy anniversary, Mr. Mercer.”
“Happy anniversary, Mrs. Mercer.”
I closed my eyes.
I had been so certain she would be safer without me.
Certainty was a dangerous luxury.
“Luke?”
The voice was barely a sound.
My eyes opened.
Elena’s eyelids fluttered.
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“Elena.”
Her eyes opened slowly.
Confusion passed through them first.
Then recognition.
Then pain.
Not physical pain.
Me.
She looked at me and remembered.
Her lips parted.
“No.”
I reached for the call button.
“I’m getting the doctor.”
“No.”
Her hand caught my sleeve.
She was weak.
So weak I barely felt the pressure.
But I stopped.
“You’re in St. Catherine’s,” I said. “You collapsed.”
Her gaze moved toward Marco’s empty place by the window.
Then to the envelope.
Fear entered her face.
“You read it.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
