Chapter 7: The Man With My Father's Eyes
I stopped four feet from him.
He was wearing a jacket that didn't quite fit — slightly too wide at the shoulders, the kind of thing someone puts on when they are trying to look more prepared than they are.
His hands were at his sides.
He did not step back when I approached.
"You took my mother's phone," I said.
"Yes." No hesitation.
No excuse layered on top of it.
Just the word, flat and clear.
"Why?"
"Because I was afraid of what would happen if she got here." He glanced past me toward Nia, then back.
"I was wrong to do it.
I know that."
"You terrified her."
"I know."
"She walked three blocks.
In the rain.
With a torn sleeve."
He looked down at the floor briefly.
When he looked back up, the expression on his face had shifted into something I was not ready to be moved by yet but which I registered anyway.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"To her specifically.
Not as a general statement.
I'm sorry for what I did to her today, and I'm sorry that she had to find out everything this way."
"What way did you think she should find out?"
He didn't answer that.
"You had a relationship with my father," I said.
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"Three years.
We met through a consulting project.
He hired my firm." A pause.
"It became something else.
We both knew it shouldn't, and we did it anyway."
"Was he in love with you?"
The question came out before I had decided to ask it.
Marcus looked at me with the expression of someone being asked to carry something heavy in public.
"I think so," he said quietly.
"Yes.
I think he was."
I heard my mother make a small sound behind me.
I did not turn around.
"And the money.
The transfer agreement."
"He came to me when he got the diagnosis.
He said he wanted to make sure I was taken care of.
I told him I didn't want it.
He did it anyway." Marcus pressed his lips together.
"I didn't touch the account for two years after he died.
Then my mother found out it existed and she—" He stopped.
"She used it."
"She managed it.
There's a difference in her mind." Something moved briefly across his expression.
"Not in mine."
I looked back at Diane.
She was standing with her hands folded in front of her, chin level, watching the conversation the way someone watches a situation they have already decided they can survive.
"You tried to keep my mother quiet," I said to her, across the room.
"To protect the money.
To protect what you knew."
"To protect my family," she said.
"My mother is my family."
She said nothing.
I turned back to Marcus.
"When Nia met me — did she know who I was?"
He closed his eyes for a second.
"She figured it out within the first few weeks.
She called me.
I told her to end it.
She said she couldn't." He opened his eyes.
"I don't think she was lying about that.
I think she genuinely — I think she cared about you.
I think she still does."
"That doesn't help me right now."
"No," he said.
"I know it doesn't."
Behind me, I heard Nia's heels on the floor.
She had moved closer.
I could feel the specific weight of her presence the way you can feel someone you have shared a bed with — not sight, not sound, just proximity.
"Michael." Her voice was different now.
The management was gone.
Something underneath it had come through.
"I know I have no right to ask anything of you right now.
I know that.
But I need you to know that what I felt — what I feel — it was never part of a plan.
I didn't love you to fix something or hide something.
I loved you because you were the first person who ever made me feel like I didn't have to manage everything all the time."
I turned around slowly.
Her eyes were bright.
She was not performing it.
I had watched her perform things for long enough now that I knew the difference.
"Then why didn't you tell me?" I said.
She pressed her hand flat against her sternum, the way people do when they are trying to hold something in.
"Because I was terrified that if you knew, you would look at me the way you're looking at me right now."
The room held still.
I looked at her for a long moment.
At the dress she had chosen months ago.
At the flowers in her hair that were still holding, somehow, after everything.
At the woman I had stood beside an hour ago and promised things to.
"I need everyone to leave this room," I said.
Nobody moved.
May you like
"Now," I said.
"Please."
