Chapter 5 — The Price of Staying

By Monday, the woman sitting beside me in the elevator had decided I couldn’t hear her whisper.

“She brought the kid right into his office.”

Her friend looked at me, then away.

I watched the floor numbers rise.

The first woman lowered her voice further.

“Apparently there’s a DNA test.”

I stepped out on thirty-seven before either of them could decide what that meant.

At my desk, someone had left a printed copy of the emergency childcare policy.

Three lines were highlighted.

I folded it once and put it in my bag.

Then I opened my work.

For half an hour, I managed to behave as though my life hadn’t become office entertainment.

At nine, my supervisor asked me to review a group of historical vendor accounts.

Westbridge was among them.

I took the folder back to him.

“I need to be removed from this assignment.”

He frowned.

“You asked for more responsibility.”

“I have a personal connection to an ongoing inquiry involving that project. It would be inappropriate for me to review it as part of my ordinary work.”

“What inquiry?”

“One being handled outside our department.”

His gaze dropped to the folder.

“Does Mr. Callahan know you’re refusing?”

“I’m declaring a conflict. Please assign me another review.”

He gave me a hospitality subsidiary with a backlog of invoices.

I accepted it.

At lunch, Maya called.

“I’ve reviewed the agreement. You were right to walk out.”

“Can they take Lily?”

“Richard’s remarks don’t give him authority over your child. If anyone contacts you about her care, call me immediately. We respond to actual steps, not what he wants you to imagine.”

I closed my eyes.

For three days, I had slept in fragments.

Her answer didn’t fix everything.

It gave me something solid enough to stand on.

“And the investigation?”

“A forensic accountant and an investigator have been retained through separate counsel. Ethan agreed to preserve relevant company records. You’ll be asked for your own material. Keep the originals.”

“I removed myself from the Westbridge review today.”

“Good. Document why.”

I did.

The investigator’s name was Owen Price.

He met us that evening in Maya’s office, bringing no dramatic promises and a notebook already full of questions.

Ethan sat beside the window.

I chose the chair nearest Maya.

Owen asked about dates, addresses, jobs, friends, the car Caleb drove.

I told him everything I could remember.

“A blue sedan,” I said. “Old. There was a dent above the rear wheel.”

“Registered to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Any photographs with the plate visible?”

“Maybe.”

We found one in the background of a picture taken outside our apartment.

Owen copied it with my permission.

Then he asked about the last morning.

“He kissed me before he left. He said he might be late.”

“Did he seem frightened?”

I tried to separate what I remembered from what I now wanted to see.

“Distracted. He checked his phone several times. But he still complained about the coffee.”

Ethan looked down.

“Did he take documents?” Owen asked.

“A brown envelope. Thick.”

“Did you see what was inside?”

“No.”

“Anything written on it?”

I shook my head.

Maya pushed a glass of water toward me.

Owen waited while I drank.

Near the end of the meeting, he showed me a photograph from Caleb’s old company identification.

I recognized him immediately.

But the young man in the picture wore a suit and an expression I had never known.

“He looks miserable,” I said.

“He hated being photographed for work,” Ethan replied.

It was such an ordinary thing to know about a brother.

I suddenly understood how many parts of Caleb neither of us could recover alone.

Outside Maya’s office, Ethan asked whether he could drive me home.

“I need to collect Lily first.”

“I can take you there.”

I considered the bus stop, the cold, the hour.

“All right.”

In the car, he handed me a printed list of furnished apartments.

“I had Grace look into temporary options.”

I didn’t take it.

“Why?”

“Richard knows where you live.”

“That doesn’t mean I should move.”

“No. But you should have the choice.”

I looked at the list.

One building had a staffed entrance and was close to Lily’s daycare.

“What happens when I disagree with you about something important?”

He turned toward me.

“What do you mean?”

“If you pay for a home, a lawyer, an investigation—what happens when you decide you don’t like the choices I make?”

He was quiet long enough that I believed he was actually considering it.

“We make the arrangements through Maya. Fixed terms. No obligation to continue a personal relationship with me.”

I finally took the page.

“I’ll discuss it with her.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

We were ten minutes from daycare when they called.

Lily had a fever.

By the time I reached her, she was flushed and crying because her ears hurt.

I called her pediatrician’s after-hours line.

They directed us to an urgent care clinic.

Ethan drove.

He stayed in the waiting room while I checked her in, then bought water when I asked him to.

No one mistook him for her father.

Still, when Lily reached toward him after I shifted her weight to fill out a form, he looked at me first.

I nodded.

He held her while I finished.

She pressed her hot face against his shoulder.

“Rabbit’s at school.”

“We’ll get him tomorrow,” he said.

“He’ll be scared.”

“I’ll ask your mother to call the school and tell them to look after him.”

She accepted that.

I watched him ease her coat off without disturbing her sore ear.

Caleb had never had the chance to learn any of this.

The thought came so suddenly that I had to turn away.

After the appointment, we stopped for the prescribed medicine and went to my apartment.

Ethan carried the pharmacy bag while I carried Lily.

He didn’t comment on the narrow stairwell or the stain spreading beneath the upstairs neighbor’s sink.

Inside, he waited near the door until I asked him to put the bag on the kitchen counter.

Lily refused her medicine.

Then she refused it again.

Ethan crouched beside my chair.

“Would it help if I looked away?”

She sniffed.

“Don’t look at me.”

He turned his head toward the refrigerator.

I gave her the medicine before she could reconsider.

When she was asleep, I came back to find him standing beside the kitchen table.

“You can sit,” I said.

“I wasn’t sure whether you wanted me to stay.”

I pulled out a chair.

“For a little while.”

He sat.

The apartment was quiet except for the refrigerator.

“I keep telling myself not to let her get used to you too quickly,” I said.

His gaze stayed on me.

“Because of Caleb?”

“Because she remembers who turns up.”

I rubbed a damp patch on my sleeve where Lily had cried against me.

“I can manage disappointment. I’ve had practice. She hasn’t.”

“I won’t promise you something I can’t control.”

“Good.”

“But if I make plans with her, I’ll keep them. If something changes, I’ll tell you.”

It was a small promise.

I trusted it more than I would have trusted a large one.

His phone vibrated.

He glanced at the screen.

“Owen.”

“Answer it.”

Ethan put the call on speaker after asking Owen’s permission.

The investigator spoke carefully.

“The authorized review found a payment from a Westbridge expense account on the day Caleb disappeared. It went to a vehicle recovery company outside the city.”

I sat upright.

“Recovery as in towing?”

“Yes.”

“Was it his car?”

“We don’t know yet. There’s an archived accident reference attached to the invoice.”

Ethan’s hand closed around his phone.

Owen continued.

“I’ve started tracing the corresponding records. I wanted you to hear it from me before anyone sends an incomplete document.”

“What kind of accident?” I asked.

“That’s what we’re establishing.”

After the call ended, neither of us moved.

Down the hall, Lily coughed in her sleep.

I stood to check on her.

For almost four years, I had imagined Caleb walking through our door.

Now there was a payment.

A recovery company.

An accident.

When I returned, Ethan was still sitting exactly where I had left him.