Chapter 18 Claire
Ihad rehearsed a hundred versions of this conversation in my head, and not one of them started with me crying in a hospital hallway while a divorcee wiped my tears with his thumb.
"You're nervous," he observed quietly.
"What gave it away? The fact that I’ve been holding my breath since we got in the car, or the way I'm gripping my purse like it owes me money?"
A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Now that you mention it..."
"Great, just give me a moment to breathe,"
The elevator doors opened, and the familiar antiseptic smell of the pediatric ward washed over us. I'd been here before, just once, after the hospital confrontation, but the memory of that visit was tangled up with so much emotion that walking these halls again felt like returning to a crime scene.
"She's been asking for you," Nathaniel said as we walked. "Every day."
"You mentioned that."
"I'm mentioning it again." He glanced at me sideways. "In case you needed reminding that you matter to her."
I didn’t, but his words did remind me how much I ached to see her. I didn't trust myself to respond.
Room 412. The door was slightly ajar, and I could hear the sound of machines. My heart was hammering so hard I was pretty sure it was visible through my dress.
"Ready?" Nathaniel asked.
"No," I admitted. "But let's do it anyway."
He pushed open the door.
Millie was propped up against a fortress of pillows, her arm still in its purple cast, the bandage on her temple smaller than I remembered but still present. The stuffed sloth I'd given her was tucked under her good arm, looking appropriately confused by its hospital surroundings.
She looked so small. That was my first thought. Small and pale and fragile in a way that made my chest physically ache. The vibrant, giggling girl who'd played tag in the morning room had been replaced by this quiet, careful version, a child who'd learned too young that the world could hurt you.
Then she saw us.
Her whole face transformed.
"Daddy! Miss Claire!" The joy in her voice was pure and uncomplicated, the kind of happiness that only children can produce. "You came together!"
Nathaniel reached her first, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. "Hey, pumpkin. Look who I found."
"I see!" Millie was already reaching for me with her good arm. "Miss Claire, come here! Come sit!"
I crossed to the bed, my throat tight, and perched carefully on the edge of the mattress. "Hey, sweetheart. How are you feeling?"
"My arm still itches," she said with profound seriousness. "And the food is gross. But the nurses let me watch extra cartoons, so it's okay."
"Priorities," I managed, smiling despite the burning in my eyes. "Very important to weigh the cartoons against the gross food."
"That's what I said!" She studied my face, and her expression grew more uncertain. "Miss Claire? Did you go to the court place again?"
I glanced at Nathaniel over her head. He gave me a small nod.
"We did," I said carefully. "And the judge made some really important decisions."
"About Aunt Victoria?"
She was still persisting in her mind, like a bad dream that visited her every day. Millie's small body had tensed, almost imperceptibly, the way an animal tenses when it senses a predator nearby.
"Yes, about Aunt Victoria." Nathaniel moved to the other side of the bed, taking Millie's injured hand gently in his.
"Sweetheart, she's not going to be around anymore.
Not at the house, not at your school, not anywhere you might be.
The judge decided she needs to go somewhere else for a long time. "
Millie's brow furrowed. "Somewhere else? Like... far away?"
"Very far away," I said softly. "She can't come near you anymore. Ever."
"Ever?" The word came out small, almost disbelieving. "Promise?"
"Promise," Nathaniel said, his voice rough. "You're safe now, pumpkin. You and me. We're safe."
I watched the information land on Millie's face, watched her process it with the particular gravity of a child who's learned not to trust good news too easily. For a long moment, she was silent.
Then something shifted. Some tension I hadn't even fully registered began to drain out of her small frame, like air escaping a balloon. Her shoulders dropped. Her grip on the sloth loosened.
"Good," she whispered, sinking back into her pillows. "I didn't like it when she yelled. She was always so mean."
"I know, sweetheart." I reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "But you don't have to think about that anymore."
"Okay." Her eyes were already growing heavy, the exhaustion that came with healing, which the nurses had warned us about. "Miss Claire?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you staying now? Like, really staying?"
I looked at Nathaniel, not sure what to say, not sure what I was allowed to promise.
He held my gaze. Said nothing. Left the answer entirely to me.
"I'm here," I finally said. It was the only truth I could offer with certainty. "Right now, I'm here with you."
Millie's mouth curved into a sleepy smile. "Good. I missed you."
"I missed you, too, sweetheart. More than you could ever know."
We stayed with her as she drifted, her breathing evening out into the slow rhythm of sleep. Nathaniel told her quietly about the garden at the mansion, how the roses were blooming, how the birds had built a nest in the oak tree.
I described the books waiting for her at home, the new chapter of Charlotte's Web we'd read together when she was feeling better. Small, soft things. Safe things.
When her eyes finally closed and stayed closed, the sloth clutched like a talisman against bad dreams, Nathaniel caught my eye and tilted his head toward the door.
We slipped out into the hallway, the door sighing shut behind us.
The corridor was quiet, empty except for a nurse at the far station who glanced up briefly before returning to her charts. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in that particular hospital pallor that made even healthy people look slightly ill.
Nathaniel leaned against the wall opposite me, running a hand through his hair. He looked exhausted, genuinely, bone-deep exhausted, but there was something different in his face, too. Some weight that had been lifted.
"Thank you," he said. "For coming today. For being here."
"You don't have to thank me for that. I'll always be here for her."
"I know." He was quiet for a moment. "But I'm thanking you for more than Millie."
I felt the implication in those words, what they could mean.
"Nathaniel—"
"Let me say this." His voice was rough, uncertain in a way I'd rarely heard from him. "Please. I've been trying to figure out how to say it for a week, and I'm probably going to mess it up, but I need to try."
I nodded, giving him space to speak.
"What happened to you in that courtroom…" He stopped, started again. "What I let happen to you. What my life, my choices, my marriage did to you. I'm sorry, Claire. I'm so sorry. Those words aren't enough. I know they're not enough. But they're all I have."
"Nathaniel—"
"I tried to fix it with money." He let out a hollow laugh.
"Because that's what I do. I see a problem, I throw resources at it.
Your apartment, the severance, I thought if I could just give you a clean break, a way out, it would somehow make up for what you'd been through.
" His eyes met mine, storm-gray and anguished.
"But I think I just made it worse. Didn't I? "
I couldn’t let my feelings stay locked up inside anymore.
"Yes," I whispered. "You did."
He flinched, but he didn't look away. "Tell me. Tell me what I did wrong. I need to understand."
And suddenly I was talking, words spilling out that I hadn't even known I was holding back.
"My whole life, love has been a transaction." My voice shook, but I kept going. "I’ve been stuck in the unhealthy cycle of trying to prove myself worthy.”
"Claire..."
"When you sent that text—" My voice cracked. "The severance package, 'complete freedom.' It felt like the final proof. Like you were settling the account. Like everything I'd believed about love being conditional was right, and I was just another problem you'd solved by throwing money at it."
"That's not—"
"I know." I held up a hand, stopping him. "I know that's not what you meant. Eleanor helped me see that. But in the moment, all I could hear was my mother's voice telling me I wasn't worth keeping. Just worth compensating."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Nathaniel pushed off the wall, closing the distance between us in two strides. He stopped just inches away, close enough to notice the tears trying to escape his eyes, close enough to count the sleepless shadows beneath them.
"I am an idiot," he said quietly.
Despite everything, I almost smiled. "That's not exactly the response I was expecting."
"It's the truth." His hand came up, hovering near my face, not quite touching.
"I thought I was protecting you. Giving you an exit before my world destroyed you like it destroys everything.
I thought…" He swallowed hard. "Michaela died because I wasn't paying attention.
Victoria nearly killed Millie because of her battle with me.
When I watched you in that courtroom, watched them tear you apart because of your connection to my family, I thought.
.. if I love her, I'll destroy her too."
He said it. It was something I feared to hear, but from him, I really wanted it to be true.
Love.
"So I tried to pay you to run," he continued, his voice rough. "As far away from me as possible. Not because you weren't worth keeping, Claire. Because I was terrified I wasn't safe to keep you."
"Nathaniel..." I didn't know what to say. His confession had rearranged something inside me, shifted the ground I'd been standing on.