Chapter 6
That morning, I saw my own obituary for the first time.
Not an official one, of course. Officials know how to wait for a body, a report, a stamped seal, an expert's signature, and the elegant phrasing that can make even murder look like an accident tinged with noble grief.
But online, they had buried me before the river had washed the smell of smoke from my skin.
"Tragedy at Charity Gala." "Philanthropist Adrian Mercer's Wife Missing After Explosion.
" "Sources Report Lana Mercer Was in a Troubled Emotional State.
" "Businessman's Pregnant Companion Miraculously Survives.
" Companion. That was what they were already calling Nikki.
Not mistress. Not the woman for whose sake the lawful wife had been forced to shake hands in front of the cameras.
Companion. The word was clean, neat, almost romantic, as though she had not sailed away from a sinking riverboat in my life jacket but merely accompanied Adrian to a charity ball with his new truth beneath her heart.
I lay in a strange room beneath a heavy gray blanket, an IV in my arm and the phone Andrew had given me in my hand, because my own had sunk with my clutch, the little box, the test, and the last naive version of me.
The screen trembled before my eyes, and not because the connection was poor.
My hands were shaking. The news feed moved slowly, thickly, like dirty floodwater, and every line tore another piece of air from my lungs.
My wedding picture. My face framed by white flowers.
I was looking at Adrian as if he had led me out of the darkness instead of finding the keys to my cage.
The comments beneath the picture were already hissing, multiplying, biting.
"Poor Adrian. What a tragedy." "They say his wife had issues.
" "And the new girlfriend is pregnant? Must be fate.
" "No wonder men leave hysterical women.
" I read them and felt myself being killed a second time, not by water now, but by the words of people who would never know the sound of a plastic buckle snapping closed when your husband fastens your salvation around another woman.
"If you keep reading that, I'll take the phone and throw it into the fireplace," Graham Lawson said.
I did not look up right away. He sat near the window in his wheelchair, wearing a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
The morning light fell hard across his face, without a trace of softness, emphasizing the scar at his temple, the strong line of his cheekbones, and the shadows under his eyes.
He did not look like a savior. He looked like a man who had quarreled with life long ago and now spoke to it exclusively in commands.
Everything in his home was the same: massive furniture, wood, stone, very little decoration, no attempt to feel cozy for guests.
The house did not embrace you. It endured.
Perhaps that was why I was still alive inside it.
"It's my obituary," I said hoarsely. "I have a right to read it."
"Obituaries are read by the dead person's relatives, not by the guest of honor."
"I'm missing."
"You're a woman who tried to drown last night in a dress that cost as much as a small car. There is a difference."
I turned toward him and narrowed my eyes, because anger was easier than falling back into that sticky abyss.
"If you keep making jokes about my dress, I'll start wishing they had cut it off you instead."
"Excellent," he said calmly. "You still have anger. That means your blood is circulating for more than the baby."
At the word baby, I tightened instantly and put a hand over my belly.
The aching low down was not as bad as it had been during the night, but the fear had not gone away.
It had settled inside me like a separate organ, heavy, pulsing, ravenous.
Dr. Foster had told me that morning that the pregnancy was still threatened, that I needed rest, medication, monitoring, and no stress.
No stress. I had almost laughed in her face.
What an elegant piece of medical advice for a woman whose husband had ordered someone to push her away from a lifeboat.
Do not get upset. Do not worry. Breathe evenly while the news sells your death as a convenient family drama.
"Is he looking for me?" I asked.
Graham regarded me without expression.
"Yes."
There it was. My heart jerked anyway. Not from hope. No. I was not that foolish anymore. But somewhere deep in my body lived the old habit of responding to Adrian before my mind could raise a weapon. He is looking for me. Once, those words might have warmed me. Now they smelled like a manhunt.
"How?"
"His own people, the police, private security. Officially, they're searching for his missing wife. Unofficially, they're checking hospitals, private clinics, security footage near the docks, and lists of survivors."
"He's afraid I'm alive."
"Don't flatter him," Graham said. "He isn't afraid of your life. He's afraid of your voice."
The words struck home. So precisely that my mouth went dry.
My voice. For three years of marriage, it had existed as a decorative feature: to express gratitude, agree, offer congratulations, and smile.
Yesterday on the deck, it had become dangerous for the first time because it had said, I am pregnant.
And Adrian had chosen not to hear it. Now, if I came forward and told the truth, his perfect tragedy would crack.
It would not collapse all at once. Men like him fall slowly, cushioned by attorneys, press releases, bought experts, and sympathetic interviews.
But there would be a crack. And a crack in his reputation frightened Adrian more than blood on his hands.
"He'll say I'm lying," I said.
"Of course."
"That I'm mentally unstable."
"He already is."
"That I refused a life jacket. That I panicked. That I had a breakdown."
"He'll probably add that you've been jealous lately, imagining things, threatening yourself and others. The classics for wealthy bastards with good attorneys."
I closed my eyes. It made me sick not because I was weak, but because he was so accurate. He had never seen my life, yet he already knew its pattern the way a doctor recognizes an illness by its smell.
"You say that as if he isn't the first wealthy bastard in your collection."
"I served long enough to learn that bastards wear different uniforms, but their handwriting looks the same."
I opened my eyes.
"Were you a general?"
"I was."
"And now?"
He looked at his legs beneath the blanket. Not theatrically. Without pitying himself. His gaze merely stated a fact.
"Now I'm a man in a wheelchair who deeply dislikes seeing living people declared dead ahead of schedule."
The sentence hung between us, and for the first time I wondered whether he was more than hard.
He was angry at the world not simply because the world was cruel, but because once, it had tried to put a period where he still intended to continue.
Perhaps that was why he had pulled me not only from the water, but from the version of fate someone else had already written for me.
I looked away, toward the window. Beyond the glass lay a garden, wet from the night's rain, dark fir trees heavy with moisture, and a narrow path leading to the river.
From here, the water seemed almost peaceful.
The same river that had tried to swallow me the night before.
I hate peaceful places after a catastrophe.
They look as though nothing happened, and that destroys you more thoroughly than a scream.
"I need to call the police," I said.
"No."
I slowly turned toward him.
"Excuse me?"
"No," he repeated. "Not now."
"Are you keeping me here?"
"I'm keeping you from doing something stupid. Those are two different legal categories."
"Very funny."
"I try. From what I understand, your home suffered from a shortage of humor."
"My home suffered from a shortage of humanity. Humor was simply the first casualty."
He almost smiled, but immediately turned serious again.
"Lana, if you make a statement now, they'll crush you.
Not because you're lying. Because you're alone, your pregnancy is at risk, you have no identification, no phone, and no evidence beyond the word of a woman in shock.
He has a family, attorneys, the media, doctors, security, and a narrative that is already in motion: unstable wife, tragedy, desperate attempts to save her. "
"I have the truth."
"Truth without support is meat at a market. People touch it, smell it, bargain over it, and the ones with the most money buy it."
I shuddered.
"Do you always comfort people like this?"
"I don't offer comfort."
"I noticed."
"I'm explaining why you can't go running back to people who have already learned to turn your pain into paperwork."
I wanted to argue. I wanted to very badly.
I wanted to tell him I was not a coward, that I would not hide, that I would not let Nikki wear my life jacket on the news, Vivian talk about my instability, and Adrian play the grieving widower while his wife was still alive.
But then the pain pulled at my lower abdomen again, sharp and delicate, as though someone inside me were reminding me what gave me the right to be furious at all.
I went pale, because Graham immediately pressed a button on the arm of his wheelchair. Dr. Foster came in seconds later.
"Pain?" she asked as she approached me.
"A little."
"Her ‘a little’ usually means ‘I'm about to die, but first I'm going to argue,’" Graham informed her.
"Graham, leave the room."
"This is my house."
"And she is my patient. Out."
He looked at her, then at me.
"Listen to your doctors. You can hate me later."
"I'll schedule my hatred accordingly," I breathed.
"Good girl."