Chapter 19 #2
The house is lit from inside when I pull into the driveway.
Every window is glowing. Saylor must have replaced the porchlight.
The old one was a bare bulb, stark and unwelcoming, and this one is warm, amber, the kind of light that makes a front door look like an invitation instead of a barrier.
I can see movement through the kitchen window.
Two figures. Saylor at the counter, Ada at the table.
The ordinary choreography of an evening in a house that works.
I sit in the car for a moment. Engine off.
Hands on the wheel. It dawns on me that I’ve driven more in the past few months than I have in the past ten years.
How funny. Even though I still hate driving, it’s not as daunting when the destination looks like this.
Like home. This is why people rush home.
This feeling of relief and warmth. A novelty I’ve always skirted around, but have never really known.
The Thai food is in the passenger seat, the bags warm against the leather. The oak tree is a shadow against the darkening sky. The tire swing hangs motionless. This is so peaceful. How is it that although I’ve lost everything, I’ve gained everything as well?
I carry the food to the door. I don’t knock and the door is unlocked because Saylor is expecting me. Every night, I belong somewhere now.
“I brought dinner,” I announce, rounding the corner into the kitchen.
Saylor looks up from the counter where he’s been doing something with a screwdriver and a cabinet hinge.
Ada looks up from the table where she’s reading a paperback with a shirtless man on the cover, which she makes no attempt to hide.
The house smells like sawdust and tea and the lemon cleaner I bought last week that Ada has adopted as her own.
“Thai?” Saylor asks, eyeing the bags.
“Green curry, pad see ew, mango sticky rice.”
“The good place?”
“The good place.”
He grins. Sets down the screwdriver. Takes the bags from my hands and starts unpacking them on the counter with the efficient care of a man who treats food as a serious matter. Ada marks her page and closes her book. I pull up a chair.
We eat. For twenty minutes, we just eat.
Saylor tells a story about the cabinet hinge that involved a YouTube tutorial, a stripped screw, and language Ada pretended not to hear.
Ada tells me about the book she’s reading.
“He’s a Scottish duke with a tragic past and enormous…
lands. Very large tracts of land.” She pumps her eyebrows, thinking her innuendo is cleverly disguised for just us girls.
Saylor nearly chokes on his curry. I laugh.
That was somewhere between “awww” and “ewww.” For twenty minutes I forget to be stressed and distracted.
The boardroom doesn’t exist. Greg doesn’t exist. The numbers on the screen are someone else’s problem in someone else’s life.
But once the food runs out, the silence that follows is the kind that knows something is coming.
“I need to tell you both something,” I say.
Ada sets down her fork. Saylor stops chewing. Two people who love me looking at me across a table, waiting for whatever I’m about to say with the specific stillness of people who have learned, through experience, that bad news doesn’t improve with delay.
“A few days ago at the ultrasound, Eleanor cornered me with some insights about my company. Today, I found out she was telling the truth. Celeste, the company, is bankrupt.” I say it simply because there’s no other way.
“Greg has been mismanaging funds for a long time. He leveraged property we didn’t even have against unauthorized debt.
The lines of credit are overextended, the inventory costs haven’t been reconciled, and the backers and brands have labeled our accounts as delinquent.
” I take a steadying breath. “I have two options. Go public and give my company away, or declare bankruptcy and walk away.”
“What does walk away mean?” Saylor asks.
“About two hundred thousand dollars cash, in my pocket. Maybe a little less after debts, legal fees, liquidation of assets.” I let the number sit.
I watch Saylor do the math—the same math I did in the conference room, the math that converts twenty years of a woman’s life into a figure that wouldn’t buy this house outright.
“I think I’m going with bankruptcy. I’m separating from Greg entirely.
The brand—” My voice catches. Just once.
I clear it. “The brand will be gone. But I’ll be free of him.
I’m not totally irresponsible. I do have money tucked away for savings.
I have personal accounts with investments.
There’s going to be a lifestyle change, but we’re going to be okay. I still have plenty to give this baby.”
Ada reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers. Her grip is warm and certain and her eyes are the same clear blue as Saylor’s and she doesn’t say anything because Ada seems to know that some moments need silence the way wounds need air.
Saylor is very still. He’s watching my face. Studying me. Reading me the way he reads everything, with that total attention that makes you feel like the only person in any room he’s ever stood in.
“Can you use that money to start another company?” Saylor asks.
“I could,” I say. I look at Ada. Then at Saylor. I watch the ripples move through both of them—Ada’s hand tightening on mine, Saylor’s jaw setting, the kitchen suddenly smaller and quieter than it was thirty seconds ago. I sit up straighter. “But I’ve already decided how I want to use the cash.”
“Use it how?” Saylor asks.
I look at Ada. “Dr. Yassa’s procedure. Ada, I want to sponsor your whole treatment. Consult to follow-up. I want to see you walk again, upright and pain free. I want to cheer you on as you run another marathon. Nothing would mean more to me.”
Ada’s eyes widen. She looks at Saylor. Saylor’s face has gone completely still—not calm still, but frozen still. The stillness of a man watching a door open that he’d nailed shut.
“What are you talking about, dear?” Ada asks.
My gaze snaps to Saylor. “You haven’t told her yet? Rina told me you and Dr. Yassa were in touch.”
“Tell me what?” Ada asks again.
“How do you even know about this?” he asks me accusingly. “So you and Rina just sit around discussing how to solve my problems for me?”
“What? No. Rina mentioned it in passing. She just told me about the accident, and the new surgeon at Mount Sinai. Saylor, I’m offering to help.”
“Help? Do you know how much they are estimating?” Saylor asks but it’s not a question.
It’s a demand. He turns to his mom. “Mum, there’s a laser procedure that you might be a candidate for but it is approximately a hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
It’s experimental, so insurance doesn’t cover it.
I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t want to get your hopes up and leave you disappointed.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to raise the money—”
“You just did,” I throw in. “I told you—”
“Celeste, your life is getting picked apart like a game of Jenga. I’m not going to be the one who yanks the final block and watches you crumble to the ground. I wanted you, not your money. I wanted to fulfill my promises, not have you swoop in like my sugar mama.”
“Saylor—”
“No.” He pushes back from the table. The chair scrapes against the hardwood. “Mum, I’m so sorry. But…no. We can’t.”
Ada makes a small sound. Not a word—a breath that carries the weight of a word.
She’s looking between us, her hand still on the table, her paperback forgotten, her face doing the complicated arithmetic of a mother who has just been offered something impossible by someone she’s starting to love only to have it snatched away by her son’s decision.
“Saylor,” Ada says quietly. “It’s not your choice.”
“What?” He’s standing now. His hand goes to the back of his neck. The gesture I’ve learned to read as system overload—too many feelings in too small a space, the circuits threatening to blow. “What do you mean it’s not my choice?”
“I know that managing my care makes you feel like you’re in control of all this, but you’re not.
The crash was an accident. Not destiny. That’s all life is, love.
Moments followed by other moments. Some good, some bad.
But this dream you keep chasing where we have what we once had is killing you.
Life is meant to move forward, Saylor. Forward good, or forward bad.
What is meant to be, will be. But you micromanaging my life is not to protect me, it’s to protect you.
You need somewhere to exercise your guilt.
But it has to stop. I love you. I would forgive you, but there’s nothing to forgive.
Listen, love, Celeste is offering me this amazing gift, I intend to take it.
” She looks at me. “If and when I’m able… I’ll pay you back, every penny—”
“Ada, no need.”
“Stop!” His voice rises. Not a shout—Saylor doesn’t shout—more a sharp escalation.
“Saylor, it’s not a big deal—”
“Not a big deal? Do you understand what it’s like standing next to you?
Every single day in your world is a reminder that I can’t provide.
I can’t pick up the check for dinner at restaurants you love.
I can’t buy you the things you deserve. I can barely keep this house from falling apart, and every repair I make is on your property, with materials bought with your money.
Sometimes I don’t know why you’re with me.
And now this? You coming in to clean up my life?
Not only do I not feel like a man in your world, now I don’t feel like one in mine. So, thanks for that.”
“Saylor!” Ada scolds.
“I need some air.” He grabs his keys from the counter. The sound of metal on granite is sharp and final.