Chapter 10: What Came After
The financial crimes unit completed their review eleven weeks later.
Richard called me on a Wednesday morning while I was feeding Noah in the kitchen of what was now, legally and completely, my house.
"They've referred the case to the U.S.
Attorney's office," he said.
"Wire fraud.
The Cayman transfers crossed federal jurisdiction lines.
Daniel's been notified."
I set down the spoon.
"What does that mean for him?"
"It means federal charges are likely.
Webb is already in contact with the U.S.
Attorney's office about cooperation.
Daniel will probably cooperate fully in exchange for a reduced outcome." A pause.
"He won't go to prison, most likely.
But he will have a federal record.
The real estate license is almost certainly gone.
The business, in its current form, is finished."
I looked at Noah.
He was looking back at me with the focused, slightly suspicious expression he had recently developed toward everything — ceiling fans, the dog next door, his own hands.
"Okay," I said.
"That's all?
Okay?"
"What else should I say?"
Richard was quiet for a moment.
"Nothing, I suppose.
I just thought you might want to — I don't know.
React."
"I reacted in the hospital," I said.
"I reacted in the car outside our house.
I reacted at Carol's kitchen table at two in the morning." I looked at Noah.
"I'm done reacting to Daniel Hartley.
I'd like to just — move forward now."
"That," Richard said, "is the most sensible thing anyone has said to me this month."
The weeks that followed were ordinary in a way I had forgotten ordinary could feel.
Noah grew.
He discovered his feet.
He made a sound one morning that was almost certainly a laugh and I called Carol immediately and she drove over in twelve minutes to verify.
Mrs.
Alvarez came for tea on Thursdays.
She had testified in the custody hearing — simply, clearly, without drama — and what she had said had mattered.
I told her so one afternoon, and she waved her hand as if I had thanked her for passing the sugar.
"You pounded on my wall," she said.
"What was I supposed to do, not open the door?"
"A lot of people would have."
She made a sound that communicated her opinion of those people very efficiently.
Vivian called once, in the second month.
I let it ring.
She left a message — short, careful, asking if she might visit Noah sometime.
I played it twice.
Then I called her back.
"Sunday afternoons," I said.
"Two hours.
Carol will be here."
A pause.
"Thank you, Grace."
"It's for Noah," I said.
"Not for you.
Not for Daniel.
For Noah."
"I understand."
She came the following Sunday.
She sat in the living room and held Noah with a steadiness I hadn't expected, and she didn't say anything about Daniel, and she didn't say anything about the past.
When the two hours were up, she stood, smoothed her skirt, and said goodbye.
At the door, she paused.
"He has your eyes," she said.
"I thought he had Daniel's.
But he has yours."
She left before I could answer.
I stood in the doorway and watched her walk to her car.
Then I closed the door and went back to the living room where Noah was lying on his mat, studying the ceiling with great seriousness.
I sat down on the floor beside him.
"You have my eyes," I told him.
He turned his head and looked at me.
I had been one of Massachusetts' strongest litigation attorneys.
I had been a wife who quieted her instincts and called it understanding.
I had been a woman on a nursery floor at midnight with a sick baby and no car and no phone and no one coming.
And I had been, it turned out, exactly strong enough.
Noah reached up and grabbed my finger with his whole fist.
I let him hold it.
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*Sometimes the people who are told they own nothing turn out to own the one thing that matters most — themselves.
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