Chapter 8: The Weight She Had Been Carrying
The first treatment was on a Wednesday.
Carol drove her.
They didn't talk much on the way there — Carol had learned, over the past weeks, when Sarah needed silence and when she needed conversation, and Wednesday morning was silence.
The clinic was in a low brick building on the edge of Portland, nothing dramatic about it.
Comfortable chairs.
A window with a view of a parking lot and, beyond that, a line of bare-branched trees just beginning to show the first green of April.
Sarah sat in the chair and let the nurse set the IV.
Carol sat two seats away with a paperback she wasn't really reading.
After a while, Sarah said, "I keep thinking about the house."
Carol looked up.
"Not because I miss it," Sarah said.
"I don't.
I think I stopped missing it a long time ago and didn't realize it." She looked at the window.
"I keep thinking about the garden.
I planted those hedges the first spring we moved in.
I thought we were building something."
"You were," Carol said.
"You just weren't building it with the right person."
Sarah was quiet for a moment.
"I wasted so much time."
"You didn't waste it," Carol said.
She set the paperback down.
"You spent it.
That's different.
You spent it being a good teacher.
Being a good neighbor.
Trying to be a good wife to someone who didn't deserve it." She paused.
"And then you spent three days in a hospital bed listening to him plan your replacement, and you decided you were done spending."
Sarah looked at her sister.
"I'm frightened," she said.
It came out simply, without drama.
"Not of him.
Of this." She gestured slightly at the IV line.
"Of what happens if it doesn't work."
Carol moved her chair closer.
She didn't say it would work.
She didn't say don't be frightened.
She just moved closer and put her hand over Sarah's on the armrest.
They sat like that for a long time.
When the session ended and the nurse removed the IV, Sarah sat still for a moment before standing.
The nurse — a young woman named Priya who had been warm and efficient from the first appointment — handed her a small cup of water.
"You did great," Priya said.
"I didn't do anything," Sarah said.
"I just sat here."
"That's the job," Priya said.
"Showing up and sitting still.
Most people find that harder than they expect."
Sarah looked at her.
"Yes," she said.
"I suppose they do."
In the car on the way home, Carol said, "Diane called me this morning."
Sarah turned to look at her.
"She said the hearing went well.
She said you gave her a document yesterday that changes things significantly." Carol kept her eyes on the road.
"She also said you've been carrying that document since January and didn't tell anyone."
"I told Diane when it was time."
"You could have told me."
Sarah looked out the window.
The trees along the road were the same as the ones outside the clinic — that early April green, tentative and new.
"I know," she said.
"I'm sorry."
Carol was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Are you going to keep doing that?
Carrying things alone?"
Sarah thought about it honestly.
"I'm trying not to," she said.
"It's a habit.
Twenty-two years is a long time to practice."
Carol nodded.
She didn't push further.
When they got home, there was a voicemail on Sarah's phone from a number she recognized as Hale's office.
She played it on speaker at the kitchen table.
*Mrs.
Vance, this is Marcus Hale.
I'd like to arrange a brief call at your convenience.
My client has authorized me to discuss a potential settlement offer.
I think you'll find it worth your time.*
Carol raised her eyebrows.
Sarah set the phone down.
She thought about Victor standing in front of the burned house.
She thought about the courtroom hallway, the elevator doors closing, the way he had looked at her at the last moment — not angry, not threatening.
Something else.
Something she hadn't expected.
He had looked, for just a moment, like a man who understood what he had lost.
She picked up the phone and called Diane.
"Hale left a message," she said.
"Settlement offer."
"I know.
He called me too." A pause.
"Sarah, before we discuss terms — I need you to know something.
I received a call this morning from Paul Greer.
He's retained his own counsel.
He's cooperating with us fully regarding the gift deed draft and Victor's request to destroy it."
Sarah's hand tightened slightly on the phone.
"Paul is cooperating?"
"Completely.
He said, and I'm quoting him directly, that he did not go to law school to help a man commit fraud against his wife." Diane paused.
"He also said Janet told him you were one of the finest teachers she ever worked alongside.
He wanted you to know that."
Sarah looked at Carol across the kitchen table.
Carol was watching her with that steady, quiet expression she had worn since the bus station — no pity in it, just presence.
"What does the settlement look like?" Sarah asked.
"We don't know yet.
But Paul's cooperation changes the picture considerably.
Victor knows we have the gift deed draft.
He knows we have a witness to his instruction to destroy it.
He knows the fraud angle is now real." Diane's voice was calm and certain.
"He's not negotiating from strength, Sarah.
He's negotiating because he's frightened."
Sarah exhaled slowly.
For twenty-two years, Victor Vance had never been frightened of anything she might do.
"Tell Hale we'll hear the offer," she said.
May you like
"But Diane — I want everything in writing.
Every word."
