Chapter 6: What Eleanor Did Next
Eleanor didn't sleep that night.
Mei knew this because the guest room — the one Eleanor used when she stayed over, the one Mei had furnished and repainted and never once been thanked for — had its light on until past three in the morning.
Mei could see the thin line of it under the door when she walked past on her way to the kitchen.
She made tea.
She sat at the kitchen island.
She didn't think about Daniel, who had gone to the study and closed the door.
She thought about the garden, and whether the roses along the east wall would need cutting back before the end of the month.
Her father had left just after eleven.
He had hugged her at the door, held on a moment longer than usual, and said: "You didn't have to do it this way."
"I know," she'd said.
"You could have walked away eighteen months ago."
"I know that too."
He had looked at her for a moment, the way he had looked at her since she was small, as if he was trying to find the part of her that needed protecting and kept discovering she had already protected it herself.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I will be," she said.
Which was not the same thing, and they both knew it.
At half past seven the next morning, Eleanor appeared in the kitchen doorway.
She was dressed.
Her hair was done.
She was holding her overnight bag, which meant she had already decided to leave.
But she had come to the kitchen first, which meant she had something to say.
Mei poured a second cup of tea and set it on the counter without being asked.
Eleanor sat down.
They were quiet for a moment.
"I didn't know about the money," Eleanor said finally.
"I want you to know that.
I didn't know you were the investor.
I didn't know about the loan or the trust or any of it."
"I know," Mei said.
"I thought—" Eleanor stopped.
Started again.
"He told me you came from a modest background.
That your father was a retired civil servant.
That the house was something he had purchased before the marriage."
Mei looked at her tea.
"He was ashamed of me," Eleanor said.
Not as an accusation.
As a fact she was still arranging inside herself.
"He was ashamed that he needed your money.
So he lied to me about who you were.
And I—" She pressed her lips together.
"I treated you accordingly."
"Yes," Mei said.
"You did."
Eleanor's hands were around the cup.
She wasn't drinking from it.
"I sl@pped you," she said.
"You did."
"In your own home."
"Yes."
Eleanor set the cup down.
"There is no version of that I can justify," she said.
"I have been sitting with it all night and there is no version of it that reflects well on me.
I was cruel to you for three years because my son told me you were beneath us.
And you never—" Her voice caught slightly.
"You never told me otherwise.
You just kept being decent."
Mei looked at her mother-in-law.
Eleanor looked back.
Her eyes were dry.
She was not a woman who cried easily, and she was not going to start now.
But there was something in her face that was genuine — not performance, not strategy.
Just an old woman sitting in someone else's kitchen holding a cup of tea she didn't deserve.
"I can't undo it," Eleanor said.
"No," Mei said.
"You can't."
"Is there anything—"
"Not right now," Mei said.
"Maybe not for a long time." She paused.
"But I heard you.
What you said is noted."
Eleanor nodded once.
She picked up her bag.
At the kitchen door she stopped.
"The roses along the east wall," she said.
"They'll need cutting back before the end of the month.
Daniel never remembered.
But you always did."
She left before Mei could respond.
Mei sat alone in the kitchen for a while.
Then she heard the study door open.
Daniel's footsteps in the hallway.
Slower than usual.
The sound of a man who had not slept and had spent the night arriving at something he didn't want to arrive at.
He appeared in the kitchen doorway.
He looked at the two cups on the counter.
"She's gone?" he said.
"Yes."
He sat down in the chair his mother had just left.
He put his hands flat on the counter.
He looked at them.
"Mei," he said.
"The divorce.
Before the attorneys get involved — can we just talk?
Just us.
No file, no audit, no—"
"Daniel."
He looked up.
"Your attorney called this morning," she said.
"At six forty-two.
I didn't answer.
But the voicemail was left on the shared household line."
He went very still.
"He was calling to ask whether you had managed to remove the financial documents from the home office before the filing." She looked at him steadily.
"Had you?"
He didn't answer.
"The home office," Mei said, "has been locked since last night.
My father's security team changed the code at midnight." She stood and rinsed her cup.
"Whatever you were looking for in there, it's already been copied."
She set the cup in the drying rack.
"The attorneys will be in touch Monday," she said.
"I think it's better if you stay somewhere else until then."
Daniel sat at the counter for a long moment.
Then he said: "Where am I supposed to go?"
May you like
"I don't know," Mei said.
"But not here."
