Is that all right? He nodded. She went upstairs. He heard her knock, heard Lily’s voice, quiet, heard the door open. He didn’t follow. He sat in the kitchen and listened to the silence of the house and thought about 18 days and about a lease he hadn’t signed yet in Milbrook and about a crayon drawing in a family tree.
He sat there for 40 minutes. When Victoria came back downstairs, she sat across from him at the table and did not say anything for a moment. She showed me the whole tree, Victoria said finally. Named everyone. Told me about your sister in Illinois who she’s never met but thinks is probably nice. A pause. She told me her mother was the most beautiful person who ever lived. She is, Ethan said. Was.
She was. Victoria looked at her hands. She drew me in the tree. Ethan, I know. She said I was. Her voice didn’t break, but it came close, which was something he’d never seen from her before. She said I was the person who made the house feel less quiet. The kitchen was very quiet right now.
The particular quiet of a house where a child is upstairs settled and two adults are sitting with something they’ve been not saying for a long time. Victoria, he started. Don’t, she said. I wasn’t. I know what you were going to say. She looked up. You were going to be reasonable. You’re always reasonable. You were going to say something about the arrangement or about what’s best for Lily or about not wanting to make things complicated.
Her voice was controlled, but it was work. I don’t want reasonable right now. He looked at her. Okay. I don’t know how to do this, she said. I don’t know how to. She gestured in a way that encompassed nothing specific and everything relevant. I built this as a transaction. I knew what it was. I made you sign a document specifically to prevent exactly what is currently. She stopped.
I’m very aware of the irony. Yeah. He said, “And I’m aware that you’re leaving in 18 days and that you’ve been planning it and I’m aware that the arrangement was always the arrangement.” She looked at him. I’m just not sure what to do with the fact that somewhere in the last 4 months I stopped wanting it to end.
He was very still. That’s all I’m saying, she said. I’m not asking you for anything. I know the contract. The contract ends in 18 days, he said. After that, the contract is a piece of paper. I know. So, if I have something to say after that, Ethan. She looked at him with a directness that was partly the CEO and partly the woman in the hallway at midnight.
Mostly something that was both. I put a clause in the contract specifically because I was afraid of this. I know you did. The clause exists because I knew myself well enough to know I was a risk. I form attachment slowly and then she pressed her lips together. And then I’m terrible at letting go.
You think I don’t know that about you? She looked at him. Victoria, he said, I’ve been living with you for 5 months. I know how you take your coffee, and I know which problems you pace for and which ones you sit very still for. I know you leave cabinet doors open because your brain has already moved to the next thing. I know you put Lily’s drawings in your desk drawer instead of throwing them out.
He held her gaze. I know you. I’m not a stranger who’s about to misread a situation. She was very still. I’m not saying anything tonight, he said, because tonight is not the right time, and I’m not going to do something important badly. He looked at the table, then back at her. But I’m also not going to pretend I’ve been thinking about that lease in Milbrook without it costing me something.
She looked at him for a long time. Okay, she said finally. Okay. She got up and got a glass of water and stood at the sink for a moment with her back to him, and he didn’t say anything else, and eventually she went to bed. He stayed at the table and looked at the space where the family tree had been and thought about what he’d said and what she’d said.
And the 17 days between now and the moment when the contract stopped telling either of them what they were allowed to mean. The inquiry Graves had filed began moving faster than Gerald had anticipated. On the following Monday, Victoria called Ethan from the office at 3 p.m., which she almost never did.
He was between jobs sitting in the truck outside a house in Milbrook and he picked up on the second ring. The ethics committee voted to proceed. She said full investigation. They want to interview you. He sat up straighter. Me as my spouse. Standard protocol. They’ll want to establish the nature of the marriage, whether it’s genuine. A pause.
Gerald is working on our legal response, but I wanted to tell you before you heard it some other way. When? Next week. The 21st. 2 days before the contract ended. All right. He said, “Ethan, you don’t have to.” I said, “All right.” He said it calmly, not harshly, just clearly. I’ll be there. They’ll ask difficult questions. I’ll answer them.
The questions will be designed to find inconsistencies to establish that we didn’t She stopped that we didn’t choose each other. he finished. A silence on the line. If you tell the truth, she said carefully, there’s a version of events that’s complicated to explain. The initial arrangement, Victoria. He looked out the windshield at the ordinary afternoon street, at the ordinary houses where ordinary people were going about ordinary Mondays.
If I tell the truth about the last 5 months, there’s nothing complicated to explain. She was quiet for a moment. What do you mean? I mean that I signed a contract in October and I’ve spent five months cooking dinner in your kitchen and watching your daughter’s school performances. He stopped.
