Chapter 22 #2
“Has he asked about me?”
“Once. Ted told him not to. He hasn’t asked again.”
Emma looked toward the hallway.
“I need to use the restroom.”
“Second door on the right. If you see Arthur or Ted, don’t speak to them. If either one approaches you, keep walking and come get me.”
“I understand.”
Rachel returned to the other room.
Emma stood and smoothed the front of her blazer before stepping into the hall.
Arthur was at the water cooler.
She almost didn’t recognize him. He held a small paper cup in one hand, and water had spilled across one of his shoes. His gray suit pulled at the buttons when he turned toward her.
He looked older than she remembered.
Arthur saw her.
Emma kept walking.
She didn’t slow down or turn away. For two seconds, maybe less, she met his eyes. Then she continued toward the restroom.
His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak.
Once inside, Emma stood at the sink and looked at herself in the mirror.
Her hands were steady but she still felt shaky inside. She hadn’t cried or given him the anger she had carried with her when she first arrived in Key West. Seeing him hadn’t even frightened her.
What she felt was harder to name.
Emma washed her hands and thought about her father. David Kendrick would have been proud of her for walking past Arthur without allowing him to pull her into whatever he might have wanted to say.
Then another thought came.
Arthur had been her father’s brother. He had loved him just as Gloria did.
That didn’t excuse what Arthur had done to her grandmother, and it didn’t change what Emma wanted the court to do about the will or the cottage. Still, she could acknowledge that Arthur had lost someone he loved long before he began making the choices that brought him into Rachel’s office.
Emma dried her hands.
She thought about Gloria leaving the will, the letter and the photograph in the safe deposit box. Her grandmother must have known there was a chance Emma would one day have to face Arthur over all of it. Maybe Gloria had hoped she wouldn’t. Emma wished she could ask her.
By the time she returned to the conference room, Arthur was gone from the hallway.
Emma picked up the notebook and read for the next hour.
At eleven-thirty, Rachel came in again and suggested Emma leave for lunch before Arthur took his break.
Emma agreed.
She didn’t go to Margarita Max’s. Today she didn’t want a room full of people who cared about her. She wanted Jake.
She thought about that as she drove to the cottage. A week ago, needing someone would have made her uncomfortable. Now she turned onto Hibiscus Lane without questioning it.
Jake was on top of the pergola when she came through the gate. He looked over his shoulder and saw her standing there in the gray blazer.
He climbed down.
“You’re early.”
“Rachel told me to get out of the office while Arthur took his lunch break.”
Jake studied her face. “How bad was it?”
“I don’t know yet. Rachel thinks it’s going well.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Emma looked at him. “I saw him.”
Jake waited.
“He was standing in the hallway at the water cooler. Rachel told me not to speak to him if I ran into him, so I didn’t.”
“Did he try to talk to you?”
“I think he was going to. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.”
Jake reached for her hand. “Come sit down.”
They went to the porch, and Emma took off the blazer before sitting beside him on the swing. Jake disappeared into the house and came back with two ham sandwiches and a bag of plantain chips.
“I’m not very hungry.”
“Eat half.”
Emma smiled. “You sound like Leah.”
“I’m going to assume that’s a compliment.”
He sat beside her and handed her a sandwich.
Emma took a bite mostly because Jake was watching her. After a minute, she realized she was hungry after all.
“I thought I’d be furious when I saw him,” she said.
“You weren’t?”
“No. That’s the strange part.”
Jake waited for her to continue.
“He looked old. His suit didn’t fit, and he’d spilled water on his shoes. For a second, I almost felt sorry for him.”
“Almost?”
Emma looked down at the sandwich in her hands. “Then I remembered Gloria.”
Jake nodded.
“But I also thought about my father. Arthur was his brother. He lost him too.”
“That doesn’t change what he did.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Emma leaned back against the swing. “I think that’s what I’m finally beginning to understand. Two things can be true at the same time. Arthur can have loved my father and still have done something terrible to his mother.”
“And to you.”
“Yes.”
Jake reached over and took one of the plantain chips from her plate.
Emma looked at him. “Those are mine.”
“You said you weren’t hungry.”
“That was before you started stealing my food.”
He smiled and took another one.
Emma felt herself relax.
“Rachel thinks he’s in trouble,” she said. “She won’t promise me what will happen Wednesday, but she says nothing she heard this morning hurt our case.”
“That sounds good.”
“It does.”
“But?”
Emma thought about it. “I don’t think I care about winning the way I did when I first got here.”
Jake was quiet.
“I want the cottage,” she continued. “I want Gloria’s will recognized, and I want Arthur to understand he can’t take something just because he decides it belongs to him. Beyond that, I don’t want to spend the next year hating him.”
“Then don’t.”
Emma turned toward him. “That simple?”
“Probably not. But you don’t owe him your anger for the rest of your life either.”
She thought about that.
“You’re getting annoyingly good at this.”
“At what?”
“Saying the thing I need to hear.”
Jake smiled. “I’ve had a lot of practice lately.”
Emma looked across the yard at the unfinished pergola. She could hear traffic a block away and the rustle of palm fronds overhead. Nothing about the last several hours had been easy, yet sitting beside Jake made the morning seem farther away.
That was why she had come here. She hadn’t wanted silence. She had wanted someone she could tell the truth to without having to make it smaller or easier than it was.
Jake reached over and brushed a crumb from the corner of her mouth.
“Better?”
“A little.”
“Good.”
Emma looked at him. “I have to go back at one-thirty.”
“I know.”
She leaned over and kissed him.
This time there was no surprise in it. Jake put a hand against her cheek and kissed her back.
Emma didn’t move for a few seconds before finally pulling away.
“I really do have to go.”
“I know that too.”
She smiled. “Thank you for lunch.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And for listening.”
Jake touched her hand. “Anytime.”
Emma believed him.
The afternoon passed much like the morning. Emma read Gloria’s notebook while Rachel questioned Arthur across the hall. His answers became shorter as the hours passed. By late afternoon, there were long silences between Rachel’s questions and his responses.
At four, Rachel opened the conference room door.
“We’re done.”
Emma closed the notebook. “How bad was it?”
“For Arthur? Not good. Ted spent most of the afternoon trying to keep him from making things worse. Arthur didn’t always cooperate.”
“What happens now?”
“I’ll finish preparing for Wednesday. The judge will have the filings and the evidence we’re presenting. Today gave me more than I expected.”
Emma studied her face.
“You still feel good about Wednesday.”
“I do. Very good. But I’ll tell you we’ve won when Judge Ellsworth rules, not before.”
Emma appreciated the answer more than a guarantee.
Rachel pointed toward the door. “Go home. Or go see Jake. Or go sit on that stool at Margarita Max’s that apparently belongs to you now. Eat something and sleep. Wednesday is the next thing we deal with.”
“Thank you, Rachel.”
At Winslow’s, Emma changed out of the gray blazer and sat on the bungalow patio.
She thought about Arthur at the water cooler. A few weeks earlier, she had imagined confronting him and telling him exactly what she thought of what he had done. Today she’d had the opportunity to say something, and walking past him had felt better.
Arthur looked smaller than she remembered. Maybe that was because Emma finally understood that she didn’t need anything from him. Not an explanation and certainly not an apology.
She didn’t know whether she pitied Arthur. She wasn’t ready to forgive him either. What surprised her was how little she wanted to hate him.
Gloria had loved him. Emma could leave that love where it belonged without allowing Arthur to take anything else from her.
That was enough for one Monday.
She went inside and lay down. Gloria’s notebook stayed closed on the table, and her phone remained beside it.
Emma slept for eleven hours.