Chapter 2 - WHAT HE HAD ASKED HER TO BURY
Grant stared at Vanessa as if she had spoken in another language.
“What did I tell you to do?”
She folded her arms. “After Claire left, you said you didn’t want personal messages reaching you through the office. You said anything involving the separation went through counsel.”
“I didn’t say hide a pregnancy.”
“You said she would use anything she could to pull you back.”
I felt the humiliation of the previous winter rise in my throat.
The Hartwell holiday dinner had been held at a private club on East Sixty-First Street, three weeks after my second miscarriage. When I asked Grant to leave early because I could not stop crying in the restroom, he told me, in front of Vanessa and two board members, that the company could not keep reorganizing itself around my grief.
I left our Sutton Place apartment that night.
Two weeks later, a test in the bathroom of my rented Astoria studio turned positive.
I had blocked Grant’s personal number after he called my leaving “another emotional ultimatum.” I told myself letters were safer. Clearer. Less desperate.
That was my mistake.
But silence had been his choice.
I removed copies of the postal receipts from my handbag and placed them on the table. “The first letter was signed for in this building on November third. The second was delivered to your townhouse. The third reached Daniel’s firm in December.”
Daniel adjusted his glasses. “Nothing addressed to Grant personally was entered into my case file.”
“Then someone removed it.”
Vanessa shook her head. “You were already demanding spousal support.”
“I was asking why the family office canceled my health coverage while I was pregnant.”
Grant turned sharply. “Your insurance was canceled?”
“Three days after you filed.”
“I was told you moved to your employer’s plan.”
“My clinic plan covered me. It didn’t cover Rose’s NICU stay.”
Rose released Grant’s cuff and began to fuss. I pressed her against my shoulder, feeling every eye in the boardroom follow the movement.
Mark stood and walked toward the windows.
Grant noticed.
“Mark.”
He kept his back to us.
“Did you see one of Claire’s letters?”
Mark’s reflection appeared faintly in the glass. “Not a letter.”
“What did you see?”
“A scanned intake notice from the mailroom.”
My stomach tightened.
Mark turned around.
“It said Claire was claiming she was pregnant.”
Grant’s face changed, not with surprise but recognition.
The distinction was small enough that no one else might have seen it.
I did.
“You knew there might be a baby,” I said.
May you like
Grant looked at me.
He did not answer.
