53. Liam
LIAM
My Long Island home is full.
Olivia is asleep upstairs. Max is sprawled across my couch with a bandage wrapped around his side, playing up the injury for sympathy from anyone who walks past. The doctor said the bullet grazed him cleanly. He’ll have a scar and a story.
I’m at the stove when Helena wanders in. Alaska trails her, pacing as if she’s conducting a full inspection. Helena leans against the counter, watching me with open curiosity. “So this is your own recipe?”
“One hundred percent,” I say, stirring the pot.
She inhales slowly. “God, it’s making me hungry.”
I dip down and kiss her belly.
“You’re going to spoil this baby,” she says.
“Absolutely,” I say. “Tiny boots. Loud toys. I’m funding the whole disaster.”
She shakes her head. “Somebody alert the nanny industry.”
Steam rises between us. The house smells alive again. She’s here in my arms, the baby is safe, and Victor is behind us. Every loose end is tied.
Except one.
Christine Mercer.
Carroll Gardens smells like espresso and warm bread this morning. The bakery on Court Street has a line out the door, older men arguing in Italian while kids chase each other along the stoops. The neighborhood hums with ordinary life.
I take Anna to a coffee shop on the corner.
“Panama Geisha. Pour-over. No sugar,” she says when I ask.
“Flat white for me,” I say to the barista.
We get our cups quickly. She starts scanning for a table.
“Take a walk with me,” I say.
“Oh? All right.” She falls into step beside me. “How are the girls? I’ve been beside myself.”
“They’re safe.”
She exhales. “Thank God.”
“You and Victor were close?” I ask.
She waves it off. “That was years ago. He was a family friend.”
“I know you didn’t know what he was planning,” I say.
“I didn’t!” she answers quickly. “I would never hurt Helen. Or Olivia.”
“I believe you didn’t know about the kidnapping.”
She watches me carefully, trying to read what I’m really doing here. A drop of coffee slips over the rim of her cup.
“You’ve spilled a bit,” I say. “Let’s head back to your place.”
We walk the few blocks to the Mercers’ townhouse. She unlocks the door and lets me in.
“Please, Liam. Sit. Make yourself at home,” she says, grabbing tissues to wipe her hand and the side of the cup. She lowers herself into the armchair across from me. “You were saying?”
“Helena and Olivia,” I say. “Something happened when they were very young.”
Her posture stiffens. “What do you mean?”
“You told Helena that her mother was fragile. That she struggled and couldn’t cope.”
“Christine was sensitive.”
I set my coffee cup down and lean forward. “You were having an affair with Edward while he was still married to her.”
She laughs, too sharply. “You’re making this up. Are you trying to push me out? I’m not going to be a terrible mother-in-law, Liam.”
“You won’t be my mother-in-law at all,” I say.
Her eyes flash.
“Pierre D’Aboville knew,” I continue. “Christine confided in him. By the time he understood the full extent, it was too late.”
“D’Aboville?” she scoffs. “If he cared so much, why stay silent?”
“He believed protecting the girls meant preserving what little stability they had left. He let you remain in their lives, to be the mother they deserved.”
“You tell Helen whatever you want,” she snaps. “I don’t care.”
“Just like you didn’t care how much it hurt her, because she believes she caused her mother’s death?”
“Liam, don’t you dare come into my house and spew this nonsense.”
“Let’s pause on the word ‘your,’ Anna,” I say. “This house was funded by Edward’s estate. The estate is under review, and Helena is the one holding the pen.”
Her composure cracks. “Fine,” she says coldly. “Yes, I had an affair with Edward. But Christine’s suicide wasn’t my fault. She was fragile.”
“She was your best friend,” I say. “And you told Helena she was the reason her mother died.”
“Helen was always difficult.”
“That’s not how it was. Pierre kept Christine’s letters,” I reveal.
“From when Edward stayed in Paris for months at a time. It’s true, after Olivia, she had post-partum depression.
Edward traveled with the girls then to give her space.
And she still wrote about them, about how much she loved them. Never a single line of resentment.”
I let that sit.
“She was already struggling,” I add. “And then you betrayed her.”
Anna’s shoulders drop. “I didn’t think she’d ever find out,” she quavers. “I never meant for it to end like that.”
Footsteps echo from the hallway.
Helena enters. I’d asked her to wait in the other room while Anna and I got coffee. She’s heard enough.
“Anna,” she says.
Anna turns, startled.
“You lied to me,” Helena grits out.
“Helen, it was complicated—”
“You told me I killed my mother,” she says. “You get to live with what you did. But you don’t get to live here anymore.”
Anna’s expression shifts between indignation and disbelief. “This is my home.”
“It was my father’s,” Helena replies. “And I own it now.”
Anna looks at me for support. She finds none.
“Pack your things,” Helena says. “You have a week. After that, the locks change.”
Anna opens her mouth again, then stops. She leaves the room without another word.
Helena stands still for a moment, spine straight, chin lifted. Then she takes one step toward me, her fingers curling into my shirt.
“Helena?” I murmur.
The composure gives way as she steps into me fully. The sob tears out of her—raw, old, pulled from somewhere she’s carried for too long.
“All this time,” she whispers against my chest. “I believed her. I thought I broke my mother.”
I give her soothing rubs on the back. “You didn’t.”
She cries, hard and unpretty. I let her.
When it finally softens, she pulls back and wipes at her face, breathing through the last tremor.
She exhales. “No more guilt!”
“No,” I agree. “We’ve got better things to carry. The baby, yourself, Alaska, Olivia.”
A small smile finds her mouth. “And you.”
“Especially me.”
I brush my thumb under her eye, catching the last trace of tears. And the girl who thought she broke her mother finally disappears.