Chapter 2
Before I learned that Dominic’s version of marriage required me to become smaller every year.
The doorbell rang at 8:03.
I took one final breath and walked downstairs.
Our building’s lobby was quiet, the marble floors reflecting the soft gold light from the chandeliers. The doorman looked up and smiled, then paused with a flicker of surprise.
“Mrs. Vale,” he said. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you, Thomas.”
A dark sedan waited outside.
Richard stood beside it in a black tuxedo, one hand resting lightly on the silver-topped cane he carried after a hip replacement the previous winter. At seventy-one, he had the upright posture and sharp, observant eyes of a man who had spent a lifetime refusing to be underestimated.
He smiled when he saw me.
“Evelyn.”
“Richard.”
He looked at me for a moment, not in judgment, but in recognition.
“Are you certain you want to do this?”
The question disarmed me.
“I thought you were the one who wanted me there.”
“I did.” He opened the car door. “That does not mean I want you to mistake an invitation for an obligation.”
I slipped into the back seat.
“I’m not going because of Dominic.”
Richard entered beside me.
“Good.”
“I’m going because you asked.”
“That is better.”
The car pulled away from the curb.
For the first few minutes, neither of us spoke. Chicago moved around us in a blur of wet pavement and reflected lights. The city looked beautiful from behind tinted glass, as if the rain had softened all its hard edges.
Finally, I turned toward him.
“Why did you invite me?”
Richard’s gaze remained on the passing streets.
“You already know why.”
“I know what the card says. I don’t know what it means.”
He gave a faint smile.
“You always were impatient with incomplete information.”
“I learned from the best.”
“Your father?”
“From you.”
That quieted him.
We had met fifteen years earlier at a conference in Milwaukee. I had been twenty-eight, working as a financial analyst for a regional development firm. Richard had been trying to rescue a transportation corridor that connected several struggling neighborhoods to the lakefront.
Most people had seen an aging industrial district and an expensive liability.
I had seen a network of families, small businesses, and abandoned warehouses that could become something useful if someone stopped treating the area like a line item.
Richard had listened to me.
That alone had made an impression.