Chapter 2
Bennett
I should let it ring.
There is no version of this story where I do not understand that.
Elise is across from me in the green dress I bought her three Christmases ago, except buying it is not the reason I know it.
I know it because the first time she wore it, she played at a benefit in Milwaukee, and afterward I spent twenty minutes pretending not to be jealous of every man who looked at her.
Tonight her shoulders are tight.
Maren calls a fourth time.
"If it were anything normal, she'd text," I say.
Elise looks down at her plate. "Then answer."
The words are permission without permission.
I hate that I know the difference and accept the easier version anyway.
I pick up the phone.
"What happened?"
Maren does not say hello.
"The Sentinel draft leaked. Harper just sent it to legal. If it publishes with the source documents attached, the federal renewal is dead."
My chair is already moving backward.
Across from me, Elise closes her eyes.
I stop.
"How bad?"
"Bad enough that Evan is on his way in. Bad enough that I need you here."
Need.
It is a word that reaches parts of me logic never does.
I look at my wife.
"Can legal contain it?"
"Not without deciding whether we challenge the authenticity of the documents, and I am not authorizing that without you. Bennett, please."
Elise lifts her wineglass and takes a small drink.
"I'll be there in twenty."
I hang up.
Silence settles between us.
I hear everything in it.
The kitchen door opening. A fork touching porcelain at the next table. Someone laughing near the bar.
"Thirty minutes," I say.
Elise's mouth curves, but it is not a smile.
"You don't work twenty minutes away."
"I'll call from the car. If they only need a decision, I can come back."
"Bennett."
I hate the exhaustion in my name.
"This could cost us the federal renewal."
"I heard you."
"Thousands of jobs sit downstream from that contract."
"I heard you."
I reach across the table.
She moves her hand to pick up her napkin.
The movement is so smooth someone watching us would never know it is a refusal.
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
"Elise—"
"Go handle it."
"Don't do that."
Her eyes lift to mine. "Do what?"
"Say it like I'm choosing to leave you for fun."
Something changes in her face.
It is not anger. Anger would be easier.
"I didn't say anything like that."
"You didn't have to."
"Then maybe don't argue with the version of me in your head when the real one is sitting right here."
The truth of it lands hard enough that I sit back.
She looks toward the empty bread plate.
A small wrapped box rests beside her purse.
My gift.
I had forgotten she brought one.
"Open it before I go," she says.
"We can do it when I get back."
Her gaze returns to mine.
"Open it now."
I pull the box toward me.
Inside is a watch strap.
Not expensive. Dark brown leather, hand stitched, the kind I used to wear before investors started giving me watches that cost more than my first car.
I turn it over.
On the inside, stamped where no one else would see it, are four words.
COME HOME TO ME.
My throat closes.
"Elise."
"It's for the old watch. The one you wore when you proposed."
I look down at my wrist. Platinum. Complicated face. A gift from the board after our IPO.
"I still have it."
"I know."
I want to take off the expensive watch right there. I want to prove something.
Instead my phone vibrates again.
Maren: Where are you?
I stand.
Elise does not.
I lean down and kiss her temple. She smells like the same jasmine perfume she wore at our wedding.
"Thirty minutes," I say again.
She nods once.
I leave Bellini's with the leather strap in my pocket and the certainty that I am doing the responsible thing.
That certainty lasts until I reach the sidewalk.
Then I look back through the window.
My wife is sitting alone at our table, one hand wrapped around the stem of her untouched wineglass.
I almost go back.
The drive to Halcyon takes fourteen minutes.
I spend thirteen of them convincing myself I will be back before dessert.
Maren calls from the conference room before the car reaches Lower Wacker. I answer on speaker while opening the secure file she sent.
"Legal says the documents are real enough to be dangerous," she says.
"Real or authentic?"
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Turn language into a bunker."
I almost smile. She knows me well enough to hear when I am frightened.
"Where's Evan?"
"On with outside counsel."
"Dev?"
"Security floor."
"Then why am I coming in?"
The question leaves my mouth before I can stop it.
Silence.
Maren answers honestly.
"Because I trust you when everything is on fire."
There it is again.
Need.
Trust.
The two words I have mistaken for the same thing most of my adult life.
I glance at the watch on my wrist. The expensive one. The leather strap Elise gave me is still in my pocket.
"How long do you actually need me?"
"Twenty minutes if you make the call fast."
I look back through the rear window even though Bellini's disappeared blocks ago.
"Then twenty."
At Halcyon, everyone is already moving.
No one looks relieved when I arrive.
That should tell me something.
Evan is arguing with counsel. Dev has isolated the leak path. Maren has three pages of options on the wall.
The crisis is real.
It is also, I realize within five minutes, staffed.
People are doing their jobs.
I make two decisions.
Authorize one statement.
Reject another.
At minute eighteen, Maren says, "We need to stay until the injunction is filed."
"We?"
She looks at me like the answer is obvious.
And because she looks at me that way, it becomes obvious to me too.
I stay.
At ten fifteen, I tell myself Bellini's would be closing soon anyway.
At eleven, I tell myself Elise understands.
At midnight, I stop telling myself anything.
The worst part is not that I chose work once.
The worst part is how quickly one justified choice becomes a whole evening if no one makes me stop.
Maren comes out of legal with her sleeves rolled up.
"You should go," she says.
I stare at her.
"What?"
"Your anniversary."
I look at the time.
Twelve twenty.
Too late.
The shame is immediate enough that I become angry at the person who caused it.
Unfortunately, that person is me.
"We're almost done."
"Bennett."
"I'll go when it's contained."
Her expression changes.
"Did Elise tell you to stay?"
"No."
"Did she tell you to leave?"
"No."
Maren exhales.
"Then don't make her silence into permission."
The sentence irritates me because it sounds true.
I turn back to the screen.
Ten minutes later, we get the injunction.
The room exhales.
Someone cheers.
I feel nothing.
Outside, the wind is brutal.
Maren forgot her coat upstairs.
I hand her my jacket because she is shivering.
It is a small kindness.
It is also the photograph that will later become evidence of a problem neither of us intended to create.
When the flash goes off across the street, I barely notice.
I am already checking my phone.
One message from Elise.
Are you coming back?
I have never hated five words more.