Chapter 7: What Richard Knew
Maya called Richard herself.
She did it from Arthur's office, with Arthur present, and she kept the call on speaker.
Not because she was afraid of Richard.
Because she wanted a witness.
He answered on the first ring.
"Maya." His voice had the careful quality again — the one she had heard in the voicemail.
Controlled.
Trying.
"I've been hoping you'd call."
"I need to ask you something," she said.
"And I need you to tell me the truth."
A pause.
"Okay."
"Before you introduced yourself to me — six years ago, at the restaurant where I was working — did your mother tell you to find me?"
Silence.
"Richard."
"It's not that simple," he said.
"It is that simple.
Yes or no."
"She told me there was a woman I should meet.
She described you.
She told me where you worked." His voice shifted slightly.
"But I didn't know why.
She just said you were someone worth knowing."
"And you didn't ask."
"I was twenty-nine.
My mother told me to go talk to a woman at a restaurant.
I went." He paused.
"Maya, I didn't know anything about the Whitfield estate.
I didn't know who you were.
I swear that."
"But your mother did."
He didn't answer immediately.
"I think she might have," he finally said.
"I've been thinking about it since Monday.
Some things she said over the years — I didn't understand them at the time." Another pause.
"I'm sorry.
I know that's not enough."
"No," Maya said.
"It isn't."
"I was cruel to you," he said.
"The party — what I did at the party — I can't undo that.
I know I can't." His voice dropped.
"But I want you to know that whatever my mother did, whatever she knew, I did love you.
At the beginning, I did."
Maya looked at the wall.
At a framed photograph of the Manhattan skyline that had probably been hanging there for twenty years.
"I believe you," she said.
"I also think that stopped mattering a long time ago."
"Maya—"
"I'm filing for divorce," she said.
"My attorney will be in touch about Lily.
I want this to be as clean as possible, for her sake.
Can you agree to that?"
A long silence.
"Yes," Richard said.
"Whatever you need."
"Thank you."
She ended the call.
Arthur was quiet for a moment.
Then: "That was well handled."
"I needed to know if he was part of it," Maya said.
"He wasn't.
Not knowingly." She picked up her legal pad.
"That doesn't change what he did at the party.
But it changes what I do next."
"How so?"
"Gerald used Richard the same way he used everyone else," Maya said.
"As a tool.
I'm not going to let Gerald turn my divorce into another distraction." She looked at Arthur.
"What do we need to do to move the probate hearing forward?"
Arthur allowed himself a small, precise smile.
"I've already filed the motion."
---
That evening, Maya sat on Carol's couch after Lily had gone to sleep.
Carol brought two cups of tea and sat beside her without saying anything for a while.
"Are you okay?" Carol finally asked.
"I don't know yet," Maya said honestly.
"That's okay," Carol said.
"You don't have to know yet."
Maya looked down at her tea.
"She left me everything and I never got to ask her why she made the choices she made.
I never got to be angry at her.
I never got to forgive her."
"You can still be angry," Carol said.
"I know." Maya was quiet for a moment.
"I just wish she'd had more time."
Carol put her arm around Maya's shoulders.
Neither of them spoke.
Outside, a siren passed somewhere on the street below, then faded.
"She knew you'd be okay," Carol said eventually.
"That's why she left you the ring instead of just coming to find you herself.
She knew you were strong enough to do the rest."
May you like
Maya didn't answer.
But she didn't pull away either.
