Not my problem
1584 Words
(Lena)
I put the phone down and sat there for a moment.
The counter proposal was on my screen in front of me and the number at the top of it was not small. I had looked at it and understood it and trusted it the way Cole had asked me to and that was enough. I closed the document and went back to Patricia Lawson's finish samples and worked until my assistant knocked on my office door to tell me she was heading out for the day.
I looked up and realized it was past six.
I packed up my things and drove home.
The house was quiet when I got in. Brad's car was in the driveway and the lights were on in the back of the house where Jade had been spending most of her time. I went straight upstairs, changed out of my work clothes and came back down to the kitchen to make something to eat.
I was standing at the counter cutting vegetables when I heard her.
Slow footsteps in the hallway, the careful way she moved now that she was further along. I kept my eyes on what I was doing and waited for her to pass through to wherever she was going.
She didn't pass through.
She stopped in the kitchen doorway and I looked up because I felt her standing there and it was impossible to pretend otherwise.
Jade looked tired. Not just the tiredness of someone who had been up early but the deeper kind that settled into a person's face over time. She was further along in the pregnancy now, her belly round and low, and she had her arms crossed loosely in front of her in a way that looked more like she was holding herself together than anything else.
We looked at each other for a moment.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I know you don't want to talk to me. I just." She stopped and started again. "I wanted to say I'm sorry. For how this happened. For being here. I know none of this is something you asked for."
I said nothing.
She kept going, not in a desperate way, just in the way of someone who had been carrying something for a while and needed to put it down somewhere. "I'm not trying to make excuses. I know what this looks like and I know what it is. I just wanted you to know that I didn't come here to hurt you. I know that probably doesn't mean anything to you."
I set the knife down on the counter and looked at her properly.
She wasn't performing. That was the thing I noticed first. There was no calculation in her face, no angle she was working. She just looked like a young woman who was pregnant and tired and living in a situation that had gotten bigger than she had anticipated. I didn't feel sorry for her exactly. But I wasn't looking at a villain either. I was looking at someone who had made choices and was standing in the middle of the consequences of them, same as the rest of us.
That didn't mean I had anything to give her.
"I hear you," I said.
She looked at me like she hadn't expected that.
"But I need you to understand something," I said. "I'm not angry at you the way you might think I am. I'm past that. What I am is focused. I have a life to rebuild and none of that involves having conversations with you while you're living in my house."
She nodded.
"So I'm asking you not to do this again. Not while you're here. Whatever you need to say to me can wait until this is all done and we're on the other side of it. Right now I need you to stay in your part of the house and let me stay in mine."
She looked at the floor for a moment. "Okay," she said. "I understand."
"Good."
She turned and went back down the hallway. I heard her door close quietly at the end of the hall.
I picked up the knife and went back to the vegetables and finished making dinner and ate it alone at the kitchen table and did not think about the conversation more than I needed to.
The next morning I went into Cole's office for our scheduled check in on the counter proposal.
He was at his desk when I walked in but he stood before I had even fully come through the door. He looked at me in a way I was still getting used to. Direct and unhurried, like I had his full attention before I had even said a word.
"You look tired," he said.
"Good morning to you too," I said.
One corner of his mouth moved. "Sit down. I'll have someone bring coffee."
He said it like it was already decided and picked up his phone and asked for two coffees before I had even settled into the chair. I had not been offered coffee in this office before and I noted that without knowing what to do with it.
"Something happened last night," I said. "I need to tell you about it."
He sat down and leaned forward with his arms on the desk, his full attention on me. "Go ahead."
"Brad's girlfriend spoke to me. In the kitchen. She apologized for how things happened and told me she didn't mean to hurt me."
He was quiet for a moment. "What did you say?"
"I told her I heard her but that I needed her to stop approaching me while she was still in the house. I told her to stay in her part and let me stay in mine."
He looked at me for a long moment. "That was exactly right."
"I thought so."
"Did she say anything else? Anything about the case, the house, Brad's legal situation?"
"No. It was just the apology. Nothing else."
He nodded and wrote something on his notepad. "I want you to document that conversation. Write down what she said and what you said and the approximate time and send it to me today. I want a record of every interaction you have with anyone connected to Brad while this case is open."
"I'll do it when I get back to the office."
The coffee came in. He waited until the door closed again before he spoke.
"How did it feel?" he asked. "Talking to her."
I wrapped my hands around the cup. "Smaller than I expected. I thought it would be harder. But I felt clear about what I needed to say and I said it."
He looked at me for a moment with something in his expression that had nothing professional in it. "Do you know how many people would have fallen apart in that kitchen?"
"I wasn't going to fall apart in front of her."
"I know you weren't." He said it like it was something he had already decided about me and didn't need to think about further. "You're not someone who falls apart easily."
"You don't know me that well," I said.
"I know enough." He held my eyes when he said it and the office went very quiet for a moment.
I looked down at my coffee.
He let it sit for exactly as long as he wanted it to and then picked up his pen and moved us back to the counter proposal. I was starting to understand that everything Cole Harmon did was on purpose. The pauses, the questions that had nothing to do with the case, the way he looked at me like I was worth looking at. All of it was deliberate and all of it landed exactly where he intended it to.
We went through the documents for the next forty minutes. Gerald had responded to the counter with a letter that pushed back on the valuation of the professional labor and Cole walked me through exactly why that argument wasn't going to hold. I asked questions and he answered them and at one point he came around the desk to show me something on a page and stood close enough that I was aware of how much space he took up in a room and how little of it was currently between us.
He didn't move away any faster than he needed to.
When I stood up to leave he walked me to the door of his office.
"Lena." He stopped just inside the doorway. His voice dropped slightly, not much, just enough. "You walked into my office thinking you needed someone to fight your battle. I want you to know that's not what this is."
I looked up at him. "What is it then?"
He looked at me for a moment. "You're more than capable of fighting your own battles. I'm just making sure the other side understands that."
I didn't have an answer for that.
He smiled. A real one this time, not the almost smile I had seen before but an actual full one that changed his whole face, and stepped back to let me through the door.
In the elevator on the way down I stood very still and stared at the numbers above the door.
By the time I reached the lobby I had admitted to myself, quietly and without any intention of acting on it, that I was in a significant amount of trouble.
- Writer
