Chapter 4 - THE LOCKED OFFICE
Grant’s office smelled like leather and cedar.
He never let anyone in there without him.
Not me.
Not Rosa.
Not Eli.
Especially not Eli.
The headlights outside swept across the foyer windows while I pushed the office door open.
Rosa whispered from behind me:
“Hurry.”
I did not turn on the light.
The late-afternoon glow was enough.
Papers covered Grant’s desk.
Not scattered carelessly.
Sorted into piles.
A photograph sat at the center.
Me.
Asleep on the living-room sofa.
Taken without my knowledge.
Beside it were other photos.
A wineglass near my hand.
A prescription bottle on the side table.
A blurred image of me leaving a doctor’s office.
They were not memories.
They were evidence being arranged.
I lifted one folder.
Emergency petition.
Medical incapacity language.
Temporary authority.
Guardianship.
My hands went cold.
Another folder held school materials for Eli.
Not his current school.
A residential program in Colorado.
My knees weakened.
Grant had not only planned for me to “rest.”
He had planned a version of the future where I could be declared unfit, and Eli could be sent away before anyone heard him speak.
Rosa grabbed my arm.
“Phone,” she whispered.
I took pictures.
Fast.
Every page I could capture without stopping to read fully.
I sent them to my attorney, Maya Feld.
Then to my sister.
Then to myself at an account Grant did not know existed.
Downstairs, a car door closed.
Eli made a small sound.
Rosa took his hand.
“Closet,” she whispered.
“No,” I said.
I was done hiding my child.
I put the amber bottle into my sweater pocket, gathered the most important papers, and stepped into the hallway just as the front door opened below.
Grant’s voice rose from the foyer.
“Allison?”
Beatrice was with him.
I heard the click of her heels on tile.
Grant came up the stairs slowly.
Too slowly.
He knew.
Maybe he had remembered the office.
Maybe he had seen the gate camera.
Maybe he had realized Eli might finally break the silence he had built around us.
When he reached the landing, he saw the office door open behind me.
His face went still.
“Allison,” he said softly, “what have you done?”
For the first time in our marriage, I did not answer the question he asked.
May you like
I asked mine.
“What were you planning to do after I didn’t wake up?”
