Chapter Nineteen—Chris
JENSEN CALLS ON A TUESDAY morning while I’m replacing the weather stripping on the guesthouse door. “The Redmond group wants a face-to-face before they commit to the second tranche. Their managing partner is in New York Thursday and Friday.”
I hold the phone between my ear and shoulder while I peel adhesive backing off the strip. “Who have they been working with?”
“Carla, primarily. She’s handled the last three rounds.”
“Then Carla takes the meeting.”
Jensen pauses. “Chris, this is a hundred-and-forty-million-dollar commitment. They want you.”
“They want a principal. Carla is COO. She has full authority on this deal, and she’s been in the room for every discussion.” I press the stripping into the frame. “If Redmond needs a face on a screen, I’ll call in. I’m not flying to New York.”
Another pause. “Understood. I’ll set it up.”
I end the call and finish the door. The stripping is uneven at the corner, so I pull it off and start over.
Nobody is watching me make this decision. Lorna is inside the lodge. Willa left three days ago. The choice between a hundred-and-forty-million-dollar meeting in New York and weather stripping on a guesthouse door is not difficult because the calculation has changed.
Going to New York means leaving Lorna. It means two days of travel, a hotel, dinners with partners, and the familiar momentum of the job pulling me back into patterns I’ve spent two months trying to break.
Carla will handle the meeting at least as well as I would.
Probably better. She’s been closer to the deal.
I don’t tell Lorna about the call. Not because I’m hiding it, but because declining a trip to stay here isn’t something I need credit for. It’s what a husband does when his wife lives in western North Carolina and he’s trying to earn back the right to live there too.
The guesthouse is cold in November. I’ve been sleeping here since the night we spent together in the lodge, except for one other night she invited me upstairs last week. I don’t assume either evening changed the rules. She hasn’t asked me to move in, so I haven’t moved in.
I cook dinner most nights. Lorna has stopped telling me when the kitchen is mine and when it isn’t. I just start around five-thirty, and if she’s working, she works while I cook. If she’s not, she sits at the counter and talks to me.
She told me yesterday about a brand partnership that fell through because the company wanted to control her editorial voice. She spent ten minutes explaining why the deal would have been good financially and why she killed it anyway.
I asked two questions. The first was about revenue impact. The second was whether she had other partnerships that could fill the gap.
She answered both, then gave me a look I couldn’t fully interpret. Later, while I was doing dishes, she said, “You actually listened.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Not the performative kind,” she added. “The kind where you asked a follow-up that proved you understood the first part.”
“I was interested.”
She studied me. “You were.”
That was the entire exchange. I didn’t turn it into a conversation about how I’d changed. She went back to her laptop, and I finished the dishes.
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, Richard Moray calls about a property acquisition in Mount Pleasant. He wants my opinion before Friday’s board vote.
“I’ve read the package,” I tell him. “Carla’s analysis is sound. I’d vote yes.”
“Good. One more thing.” Richard clears his throat. “Fenton’s attorney contacted our outside counsel. He’s exploring a plea.”
I stop walking. “What kind of plea?”
“I don’t know the details. Jensen is coordinating with the DA. I thought you should hear it from me.”
“Thank you.”
After the call, I sit on the guesthouse porch for a while. A plea could mean Lorna doesn’t have to testify. It could also mean Fenton gets less time than the charges warrant.
Lorna is on the lodge porch reading. I could walk over and tell her now.
Instead, I call Stone. He confirms the plea discussion is preliminary and says the DA won’t agree to anything without consulting Lorna. I ask him to call Willa, who still manages Lorna’s legal coordination even from a distance.
“Let Willa brief her,” I tell Stone. “Lorna should hear it from someone she chose, not from me repeating what Richard told me over the phone.”
Stone agrees.
An hour later, Lorna comes to the guesthouse. “Willa called.”
“About the plea?”
She stops on the steps. “You knew?”
“Richard told me. I asked Stone to route it through Willa.”
Lorna looks at me. “Why not tell me yourself?”
“Because the last time important information about your safety came through me, it had passed through three other people first, and none of them were people you’d chosen.” I meet her gaze. “This is your case. Willa works for you. She should be your source.”
Lorna doesn’t say anything for several seconds. Then she sits beside me on the step.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for getting out of the way.”
“I’m thanking you anyway.”
We sit there for a while. She doesn’t bring up the plea details, and I don’t ask. If she wants to discuss it, she will.
Eventually, she tells me the DA thinks the attempted kidnapping charge gives them leverage and that a plea involving meaningful prison time is possible.
“Good,” I say.
“You don’t want him to go to trial?”
“I want whatever outcome makes you feel safest.”
She looks toward the mountains. “That’s a different answer than you would have given two months ago.”
“Two months ago, I would have wanted the trial because I wanted to see him destroyed in public.”
“What changed?”
“It’s not about me.”
Lorna smiles slightly. “You’re getting better at that.”
SATURDAY MORNING, I wake up in the guesthouse at six and make coffee on the stovetop. The pot is dented, the grounds are always slightly stale, and the results are consistently terrible.
I carry a mug outside and sit on the porch. The temperature dropped overnight, and my breath hangs in the air. Through the trees, the lodge kitchen light comes on.
Lorna appears behind the window. She fills the kettle, sets it on the stove, and leans against the counter while she waits.
I could go over and make her real coffee. She’d probably let me in.
Instead, I drink my bad coffee and let her have her morning. She’ll tell me when she wants company. She always does eventually. Sometimes by nine. Sometimes by noon. Once, not until dinner.
I wait.
My phone buzzes. An email from Carla: the Redmond meeting went well. Second tranche is likely. She handled the managing partner’s questions and is sending the term summary for my review.
I read it, send back three words of approval, and put the phone away.
The lodge door opens at eight-fifteen. Lorna crosses the yard in boots and a heavy sweater, carrying something in one hand.
She stops at the bottom of the guesthouse steps. “The upstairs faucet is dripping again.”
“I’ll look at it.”
“After breakfast.” She holds up a bag from the bakery in town. “I went early.”
“You drove to town?”
“I had a craving.” She climbs the steps and sits beside me. “Almond croissants. The ones from the place with the green awning.”
I know the bakery. She mentioned it once, two weeks ago, while describing a walk she took in town. I remember because I’ve been trying to remember everything she tells me.
“The one near the hardware store.”
She looks at me. “You remember.”
“You said the croissants were better than the ones in Charleston.”
“They are.” She opens the bag between us.
We eat croissants on the guesthouse porch while the sun comes over the ridge. The pastry is still warm.
Lorna brushes crumbs from her jeans and looks at me. “Willa thinks I should let you move into the lodge.”
I stop chewing.
“She called yesterday. She said the guesthouse is punitive at this point and that if I trust you enough to sleep with you twice, I trust you enough to let you keep your toothbrush in my bathroom.”
“That sounds like Willa.”
“It does.” Lorna pulls a piece off her croissant. “She’s not wrong.”
I wait.
“I’m not ready.”
“Okay.”
She looks at me, clearly checking whether the answer is genuine or performative.
I pick up my coffee. “The guesthouse has character.”
“It has terrible water pressure.”
“I’ve adjusted.”
“You’ve been saying that for two months.”
“I’m a patient man.”
She laughs once, short and real. “Since when?”
I smile and don’t answer. The morning is cold and bright, and Lorna is sitting beside me eating a croissant. The rings are somewhere in the lodge, transferred from pocket to pocket every day.
She hasn’t put them on. I haven’t asked her to.
We finish breakfast, and I go inside to fix her faucet.