9. Solenn
— ? —
Solenn
The keys arrive on a Tuesday.
I’m elbow-deep in the filing cabinet when Tessa comes through the clinic door carrying an envelope, doing the thing with her eyebrows that means she is working very hard not to laugh.
“Special delivery.”
“If that’s more paperwork from the divorce, I swear to God-”
“It’s not paperwork.” She drops it on the desk. “It’s a house.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“A house. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen that could host its own show, and-” she pulls out a page, squinting, “-a full domestic staff. A housekeeper. A driver. And a personal chef named Eduardo who specializes in, and I’m reading directly here, cuisine tailored to the nutritional needs of expectant mothers.
All their individual papers and contracts are inside this envelope. ”
“You’re joking.”
“I am not joking. There’s a nursery. There’s a playroom. And there’s something on the floor plan called a future sibling suite, which I’m choosing to believe means he has plans for babies two through four.”
The whole clinic has stopped. Maria has a phone against her shoulder and has forgotten there’s a person on the other end of it.
“The deed’s in your name.” Tessa holds up another page. “Paid in full. No mortgage. Just a casual gift from your ex-husband, who has apparently decided real estate is a form of apology.”
I take the envelope. There’s a key on a silver ring, a folder thick enough to stop a door, and a card in handwriting I’d know anywhere.
For you and the baby. No strings.
I start laughing and can’t stop for a while.
“He bought me a house.”
“He did.”
“With a chef named Eduardo.”
“Prenatal specialist Eduardo, yes.”
“And he thinks this works.”
“In fairness, it’s a really nice house.” Tessa turns her phone around. “Look at that kitchen. Look at that light. There’s a garden, Sol. With actual flowers in it. Add me as one of your staff but put me in the good bedroom.”
It is a beautiful house. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. It’s the kind of place I used to drive past and wonder about, all natural light and counter space, worth more than I’ll earn in ten lifetimes.
“Scroll back,” I say.
“Which one?”
“The room with the window seat.”
Tessa scrolls back and holds the phone up, and neither of us says anything for a second, because it’s a window seat, in a bay, facing east, with enough shelf built in beside it for about four hundred paperbacks.
“He doesn’t know I read. I literally read one book at his penthouse and he probably just thought it was a decoration,” I say.
“He might.”
“He does not know I read, Tessa. In three months he never once asked me what the book on his own nightstand was.” I hand the phone back. “That’s a room somebody who has never met me thinks I’d like, and the horrible part is that they’re right.”
“So take the house.”
“No.”
“Take the house and hate him in it. That’s allowed. Women have done more with less.”
“Send it back.”
“What? We could live there together. We won’t need to pay rent. You’ll actually keep half of your salary.”
“Keys, deed, Eduardo. All of it. Send it back.”
“Sol, this house is worth-”
“I don’t care what it’s worth. I didn’t ask for it, I don’t want it, and I’m not letting him buy his way out of being a bad husband with square footage.”
Tessa sighs, and starts putting it all back in the envelope anyway. “For the record, I think you’re insane.”
“Noted.”
“A personal chef, Solenn.”
“Goodbye, Eduardo.”
It goes back by courier that afternoon. I track the package the whole way to his lawyer’s office, and when the delivery notification comes through I get a small mean spark of satisfaction that has nothing whatsoever to do with that garden.
Eduardo calls me at seven that evening.
“Miss Alston? This is Eduardo Reyes. I’ve been engaged for the household.”
“There isn’t a household.”
“I understand there’s been some confusion. I wanted to introduce myself before Monday and ask about preferences.” Papers move. He sounds lovely, which makes it worse. “Any aversions? Many women find they can’t tolerate onion in the second trimester.”
“Eduardo.”
“Yes?”
“There is no house. I sent the keys back this afternoon.”
A long, professional pause.
“Ah.”
“I’m very sorry. You’ve been badly misled by a man with too much money and no sense.”
“That does happen.” He says it with the calm of somebody it has happened to before. “May I ask, Miss Alston, are you eating properly?”
And I stand in the middle of my very small kitchen holding a phone, being asked by a stranger on the payroll of my ex-husband whether I’m eating properly, and something in my throat goes complicated.
“I’m eating fine.”
“Because I do make a very good soup.”
“Goodnight, Eduardo.”
“Goodnight, Miss Alston. Congratulations on the baby.”
I hang up and stand there for a minute.
***
Three days later, the internet finds me.
Miranda sees it first, because Miranda sees everything first. She comes into the break room holding her phone out in front of her like it’s radioactive.
“Sol. Sol, don’t be mad.”
“That’s a great opener.”
She turns the screen around.
BILLIONAIRE BUYS ENTIRE HOSPITAL - FOR HIS PREGNANT EX-WIFE
There’s a photo of Liam coming out of a building in a suit. There’s a photo of the hospital. And there’s a photo of me, from the wedding, which means it came from somebody who was standing in that room.
I read the whole thing while my burrito turns slowly in the microwave.
Sharpe Industries heir Liam Sharpe has acquired St. Brigid’s Hospital outright.
Sources say the purchase followed a divorce finalized weeks ago.
A longtime friend of the family describes the marriage as a formality, adding that Mr. Sharpe never got over a previous relationship, and characterizes the acquisition as a very expensive way of managing a situation.
A longtime friend of the family. I set the phone down.
There were few people at that wedding. Two of them have ever used the phrase managing a situation in my presence.
“Sol?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, you’ve gone a color.”
The microwave beeps. Nobody moves.
“Is it true?” Maria, from the doorway, phone still in her hand. “About the hospital?”
“I have no idea.”
“But he’s your-”
“He was.”
***
The break room is unbearable for the rest of the week.
“They’re saying there’s a whole new maternity wing.”
“I heard the equipment alone is eight figures.”
“Did you see the plans? There’s a birthing suite with a waterfall in it.”
“A waterfall.”
“In the room. For the ambiance.”
Miranda finds a floor plan online and prints it, which I think we can all agree is a choice.
Somebody tapes it up next to the vending machine.
By Wednesday somebody else has drawn an arrow to the private suite and written SOLENN’S ROOM in marker, and by Wednesday afternoon a third person has scribbled it out, which is somehow worse than leaving it.
By Thursday there are opinions about it.
“Must be nice,” Maria says on Thursday, not quite to me, in the tone people use when it is entirely to you. “My sister waited nine hours in that ER with a broken wrist.”
“That’s so-”
“Nine hours, Solenn. And now there’s a waterfall.”
I take my lunch outside for the rest of the week and eat it on the wall by the parking lot, which is at least quiet, and which is where I learn that the sound of somebody genuinely liking you can turn into something else in about four days.
Nobody is cruel about it. They just look at me slightly differently now, I’m a person who turns out to have had a spare life in her pocket the whole time.
***
Dr. Mendez has my chart open and her reading glasses pushed up into her hair.
“Sixteen weeks. Blood pressure’s a touch up, so keep an eye on it, but weight’s where I want it and the heartbeat is loud enough to be rude.” She snaps the folder shut. “You’re doing everything right, which I don’t say often.”
“Thank you.”
“Now.” She takes the glasses down and looks at me over the top of them. “I’ve had an interesting week.”
“I’ve heard.”
“My contract was renegotiated on Tuesday by a law firm in a city I have never worked in, on terms I did not ask for, and when I called to query it I was informed that the new ownership considers me, and I’m quoting, an asset.
” She lets that sit. “I have been an asset for days, Solenn, and I would like to know what’s happening in my own hospital. ”
“My ex-husband bought it.”
“Yes, I gathered that from the internet, like a teenager.” She sets the folder down. “Am I about to lose you as a patient? Because if he’s arranging you a specialist somewhere with a helipad, I’d rather hear it from you than from a press release.”
“You’re not losing me.”
“Good.”
“He can buy the building. He doesn’t get to pick who’s in the room.”
Something in her face relaxes about a millimeter, which from Dr. Mendez is a standing ovation.
“Then that’s settled.” She picks the folder back up. “For what it’s worth, and I want to be clear this is not an opinion about your marriage, the maternity unit in this hospital has needed rebuilding for nine years. Whatever else that man is, he has bought us a fetal monitor that works.”
“You’re welcome, I suppose.”
“I’m not thanking you. I’m noting it.” She stands. “Iron with orange juice, not with tea. Same time in four weeks. And Solenn.”
“Mm.”
“You look tired in a way that isn’t the baby.”
***
He’s waiting in the parking lot when my shift ends.
Buying me a house wasn’t enough and buying the hospital wasn’t enough, so now we’re adding loitering to the package.
“You bought a hospital.”
He comes off the side of the car. He still looks terrible, but he’s shaved, which I resent.
“Your prenatal care is important.”
“I have prenatal care.”
“Not like this. St. Brigid’s will have the best maternity unit in the state inside a year. I’m bringing in a fetal medicine specialist from-”
“I have a doctor.”
“Dr. Mendez is excellent. She’s staying. Her contract improved considerably.”
I stop walking.
“You gave my doctor a raise.”
“She’d been underpaid for six years.”
“You gave my doctor a raise, Liam.”
“She deserved one.”
There’s a version of me that finds that funny. I meet her sometimes. She’s not available this evening.
“Do you know what happened at my work this week?”
“I know about the article.”
“Do you know it has a photograph of my wedding in it? From inside the room?”
Something moves across his face. “I know.”
“Barely anyone was at that wedding.”
“I know.”
“So you know exactly who did it, and so do I, and neither of us is going to say her name out loud in a parking lot.” I shift my bag on my shoulder. “But that’s what your money bought. Not a waterfall. That.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“Don’t. Handling things is a family tradition and I’d like to be left out of it.”
He takes that. He doesn’t argue, which is new.
“Maria’s sister waited nine hours in that emergency room with a broken wrist,” I say.
“And so has everybody else in this town, and then you turn up and it’s fixed in an afternoon because one woman who used to be married to you got pregnant.
” I shift the bag again. “They’re not wrong to be strange with me. I’d be strange with me.”
“That’s not what I-”
“I know what you meant. That’s never been the problem.” My car is forty feet away and I want to be in it. “You’ve never once in your life had to think about what a thing looks like from underneath.”
“I have a plan, Liam. That’s the part nobody in your world seems able to hear.
I have a job I’m good at and an apartment with a bad shower and a doctor who, until last week, was not on your payroll.
I have an entire life running perfectly well without a single dollar of yours in it, and you keep turning up and buying pieces of it like a man playing Monopoly against himself. ”
“I’m not trying to buy you.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out of it.
The light in the lot is going orange, and somewhere behind me Miranda’s car door slams, and Liam Sharpe stands in front of me with his hands empty and no sentence anywhere in him.
I walk past him and I don’t slow down.