Chapter 8: What She Asked Him at Breakfast
Lily came down the stairs holding a stuffed rabbit by one ear.
She stopped on the bottom step and looked at Nathan with the serious, assessing expression that he was already beginning to recognize as distinctly hers.
"Are the scary people gone?" she asked.
"Yes," Nathan said.
"They're gone."
She considered this.
"Mummy said we might be able to stay."
"You can stay."
Lily looked at the rabbit.
Then at Nathan.
"For how long?"
Nathan crouched down to her level, the same way he had the night before.
"For as long as you want," he said.
She thought about that with the full gravity a four-year-old brings to important questions.
"Can I have breakfast?" she asked.
Nathan almost laughed.
It came out as something quieter — a breath, a release of something that had been held too long.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"Eggs," she said.
"But not the runny kind."
"Not the runny kind," he agreed.
Grace appeared in the doorway.
She had changed clothes and her hair was down and she looked like someone who had not slept enough but had decided not to let that matter.
She looked at Nathan at the stove and Lily climbing onto a kitchen chair and she stood very still for a moment.
"You don't have to do that," she said.
"I know," Nathan said.
He cracked the first egg.
"Sit down, Grace."
She sat.
They ate breakfast together at the kitchen table — Nathan, Grace, and Lily — and Lily talked almost continuously about her rabbit, whose name was apparently Gerald, and about a girl at her nursery named Priya who had a rabbit too but Priya's rabbit was pink and Gerald was brown and brown was better.
Nathan listened to every word.
After breakfast, while Grace washed up, Lily pulled at Nathan's sleeve.
"Can I ask you something?" she said.
"Yes."
She looked at him very seriously.
"Did you know about me before?"
Nathan was quiet for a moment.
"No," he said.
"I didn't know.
But I want you to know something." He looked at her directly.
"If I had known, I would have come for you.
On the very first day."
Lily absorbed this.
"Okay," she said.
She seemed satisfied.
She slid off her chair and went to find Gerald.
Grace had stopped washing up.
She was standing at the sink with her back to him, very still.
"Grace," Nathan said.
She turned around.
Her eyes were bright.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I know it's not — I know saying sorry doesn't give you the five years back.
I know that.
But I need you to know that not a single day went by where I didn't think about what I'd taken from you.
Both of you."
"You were twenty-three," Nathan said.
"You were alone.
And my father had two attorneys in the room."
"I should have fought harder."
"Maybe.
But you protected her.
You kept her safe and you kept her whole and you told her good things about a father she'd never met." He looked toward the hallway where Lily had disappeared.
"She drew me a picture before she ever saw my face."
Grace pressed her hand over her eyes.
"Don't," she said, half-laughing, half not.
"I've been holding it together all morning."
"You can stop holding it together," Nathan said.
"The scary people are gone."
She laughed — a real laugh this time, wet at the edges — and pressed her hands against her face, and Nathan sat at the kitchen table and let her.
After a moment she lowered her hands and looked at him.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Practically.
Legally."
"Dr.
Osei files the counter-motion today.
The kjdnapping claim should be dismissed within two days.
Victoria's father is being referred to the DA.
Margaret has resigned." He paused.
"My attorney is already drafting the paperwork to have Lily formally recognized.
With your agreement."
Grace nodded immediately.
"And the company?" she asked.
"Still mine.
The merger will be rebuilt without Victoria's family.
It will take time, but the core of what my father built is solid." He looked at the table.
"It turns out the only things threatening it were the people who claimed to be protecting it."
Grace was quiet for a moment.
"Your father," she said carefully.
"The recording — he sounded like he was in real pain."
"He was."
"I don't know how I feel about him yet," she said.
"I want to be honest about that."
"That's fair," Nathan said.
"You don't have to decide today."
"No." She looked toward the hallway.
"But she might ask questions someday.
About her grandfather.
And I don't want to answer them with anger."
"We'll figure out what to tell her," Nathan said.
"Together."
Grace looked at him.
"Together," she repeated.
Not a question.
Testing the word.
"Together," he said again.
From the hallway came the sound of Lily explaining something at length to Gerald the rabbit.
Her voice was very serious and very small and completely certain of itself.
Nathan's attorney called at eleven to confirm the counter-motion had been filed.
He called again at two to say the DA's office had accepted the referral on Victoria's father and that an investigator had already made contact with the paralegal who had received Margaret's emails.
At four o'clock, Victoria called Nathan directly.
May you like
He let it ring.
She left no message.
