Chapter 2 - THE MARK LEFT BY THE RING
“He is having it resized.”
Elsie looked at the pale strip around Marissa’s finger.
Then she looked at her sister.
“No, he isn’t.”
Walter shifted in his chair.
“Elsie.”
She ignored him.
“How long were you wearing it?”
Marissa’s face tightened.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You do.”
Elsie pointed toward her hand.
“Mom wore that ring for thirty-three years. The band is almost a quarter inch wide. You have a quarter-inch line around your finger.”
Marissa covered it with her other hand.
“You’re imagining things.”
“No.”
Elsie’s voice stayed quiet.
“That’s what all of you are counting on.”
Walter stood.
“Enough.”
Elsie finally looked at him.
“No, Dad. I think enough was Saturday.”
Marissa’s eyes filled.
There they were.
The tears.
Perfectly timed.
“You think I wanted any of this?”
“I watched you kiss my fiancé.”
“You saw one moment.”
“I heard you ask him to promise nobody would come between you again.”
Walter looked sharply at Marissa.
That part was new to him.
Marissa’s tears stopped for half a second.
Elsie noticed.
“You didn’t tell Dad that.”
Marissa pressed her lips together.
Walter looked between them.
“What does she mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing.”
“Dad, please.”
Elsie almost admired how quickly the room rearranged itself around Marissa’s distress.
Almost.
Then Walter did something stranger.
He looked afraid.
Not angry.
Afraid.
“Elsie, whatever happened between Adrien and Marissa, there are things you don’t understand.”
“Then explain them.”
Walter stared at the table.
Marissa whispered, “Don’t.”
Elsie turned toward her.
“Don’t what?”
Nobody answered.
She waited.
Her mother had taught her that.
Everybody talks.
You just had to survive the silence first.
Walter finally lowered himself into the chair.
“When the business failed, I didn’t just lose the trucks.”
Elsie said nothing.
“I lost the yard. The contracts. Most of my retirement.”
“I know.”
“No.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“You know what I told you.”
Something cold moved through her.
“What didn’t you tell me?”
Walter looked at Marissa.
Marissa shook her head.
That was answer enough.
Elsie’s stomach tightened.
Walter said, “The house was collateral.”
Elsie stared at him.
The house on Hancock Street.
The house Diane Parker had painted yellow because she said gray New England winters needed to be argued with.
The house where Elsie learned to ride a bicycle.
Where Marissa arrived at seven years old with one suitcase.
Where their mother had died still insisting the upstairs bathroom needed new tile.
“You almost lost this house?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“After Mom died?”
He nodded.
Elsie looked at Marissa.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody told me.”
“You had enough,” Walter said.
“I had what?”
“Your mother had just died. You were starting at Bellamy.”
Elsie’s voice sharpened.
“So you decided lying was compassionate?”
Walter looked away.
“Adrien helped.”
The kitchen became very still.
Elsie thought about the hydrangeas.
The courtyard.
The dark suit.
The kiss.
“How?”
“He bought the debt.”
She stared.
Walter continued.
“The bank was preparing foreclosure. Adrien’s company acquired the note.”
“Why?”
“He said he believed Parker Construction could recover.”
“But it didn’t.”
“No.”
“So why did he keep helping you?”
Walter didn’t answer.
Marissa did.
“Because of me.”
Elsie turned.
Marissa’s face had changed.
The softness was gone.
What remained was tired.
Almost hard.
“I met him before you did.”
Elsie felt something drop inside her.
“How long before?”
“Six months.”
Walter stood again.
“Marissa.”
“She’s going to find out.”
Elsie barely heard him.
“You knew Adrien before I met him?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He came here about Dad’s debt.”
“And then?”
Marissa looked at the kitchen window.
“We talked.”
Elsie waited.
“We became friends.”
“Friends.”
“At first.”
Walter said, “Marissa.”
This time there was warning in his voice.
Marissa wiped her face.
“He knew I was worried about Dad losing the house. He listened.”
Elsie almost laughed.
Adrien had listened to her too.
He listened better than almost anyone she had known.
That was part of his talent.
“What did he want from you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then he met me by accident?”
Marissa didn’t answer.
Elsie’s heartbeat slowed.
That frightened her more than if it had raced.
“You introduced us.”
“No.”
“You arranged it.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you told him about me.”
Marissa looked down.
That was yes.
Elsie picked up her keys.
Walter moved toward her.
“Where are you going?”
“To find out what else my family forgot to mention.”
She reached the side door.
Behind her, Marissa said, “The ring wasn’t a gift.”
Elsie stopped.
She turned.
“What?”
Marissa swallowed.
“Adrien didn’t give me Mom’s ring.”
“You were wearing it.”
“I took it.”
Walter closed his eyes.
Elsie stared at her sister.
“From where?”
“Your jewelry box.”
The answer hit harder than Elsie expected.
“You went into my apartment?”
“You gave me a key.”
“For emergencies.”
“I know.”
“When?”
“About a month ago.”
The pale line around Marissa’s finger suddenly looked uglier.
“Why?”
Marissa’s voice cracked.
“Because I wanted to know what it felt like.”
Elsie didn’t understand.
“To wear Mom’s ring?”
“To have something that was yours.”
The room went silent.
There it was.
Not jealousy over Adrien.
Not only that.
Something older.
Marissa laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“You got Mom’s ring. You got her journals. You got the job downtown. You got to leave.”
“You were her daughter too.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody ever left you on a porch.”
Walter whispered, “Marissa.”
She looked at him.
“I know Mom loved me.”
Then she looked at Elsie.
“But there’s knowing something and there’s never having to wonder.”
For one dangerous second, Elsie’s anger made room for pain.
Then she remembered the window.
Adrien’s mouth against Marissa’s.
“You could have told me that without sleeping with my fiancé.”
Marissa flinched.
Elsie left.
At 9:17 the next morning, she was back on the fourteenth floor of Bellamy Holdings.
Roman was standing at the conference-room window.
Norah had placed three more photographs on the table.
Elsie sat.
“What did you find?”
Roman turned.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“My father nearly lost his house. Adrien bought the debt. Marissa knew him six months before I did.”
Roman’s expression barely moved.
But Norah stopped writing.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Roman came to the table.
He pushed one photograph toward Elsie.
It showed one of her notebook pages.
The same handwriting.
The same dark countertop.
But this time, more of the counter was visible.
A ceramic bowl sat near the edge.
White with blue lemons painted around the rim.
Elsie stared at it.
Her mother bought that bowl in Cape Cod when Elsie was twelve.
It still sat on Walter Parker’s kitchen counter.
“These were photographed at my father’s house.”
“Yes.”
Elsie looked at the next photograph.
The corner of a woman’s hand held the notebook flat.
Pale pink nails.
A thin gold bracelet.
Elsie knew the bracelet.
She had given it to Marissa for her thirtieth birthday.
Her throat tightened.
Roman said nothing.
He didn’t need to.
“Marissa photographed my notebooks.”
“Some of them.”
“When?”
Norah slid over a typed list.
Dates.
Elsie read the first one.
Then read it again.
Her confusion came before the fear.
“This is wrong.”
“No,” Roman said.
“It can’t be.”
The photograph had been taken seventeen months earlier.
Elsie and Adrien had met fourteen months ago.
She looked up.
“Adrien wasn’t in my life yet.”
Roman’s eyes stayed on hers.
“That’s the problem.”
He placed one final photograph in front of her.
This one showed the first page Marissa had copied.
At the top, in Elsie’s handwriting, was a note about a Bellamy pier schedule.
Beside it, someone else had written three words in blue ink.
Useful. Keep asking.
Elsie recognized the handwriting.
She had seen it on birthday cards.
Flowers.
Fourteen months of notes left beside her morning coffee.
Adrien’s.
Roman sat across from her.
“He didn’t meet you and decide to use you, Elsie.”
May you like
His voice was quiet.
“He was using you before you ever knew his name.”
