Chapter 22
That sound meant more.
Evelyn visited two days later.
She brought peonies.
I noticed.
Clara noticed me noticing.
Neither of us mentioned the roses.
Evelyn sat beside her bed.
“You caused quite a mess,” she told Clara.
Clara smiled.
“I was trying to avoid one.”
“That’s usually how the impressive ones begin.”
I left them alone for nearly an hour.
When Evelyn emerged, I was waiting near the windows.
“How is she?”
“Stronger than she looks.”
“I know.”
Evelyn adjusted the strap of her handbag.
“I owe you an apology.”
She looked surprised.
“For what?”
“My family.”
“You didn’t do what they did.”
“I benefited from not asking.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
I looked out at the city.
“But it’s not nothing.”
Evelyn studied me.
“Clara said you found the files.”
“All of them.”
“And?”
“We’re reopening every unresolved claim.”
Her expression remained cautious.
“I’m not interested in a check.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I believe you.”
She waited.
“What I want,” I continued, “is for you to meet the independent review team. Tell them Daniel’s story in your own words.”
Evelyn was quiet.
“They won’t work for me,” I said. “Their report won’t belong to me.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“It is.”
She smiled faintly.
“Your solution to everything.”
“Not everything.”
“No?”
I glanced toward Clara’s room.
“No.”
Evelyn followed my gaze.
Then she said something I remembered for years.
“Money is useful for fixing things money can fix.”
“And the rest?”
“You show up repeatedly.”
I looked at her.
“That’s it?”
“Usually.”
It sounded almost insultingly simple.
Maybe that was why I had avoided doing it.
Clara came home in late October.
Not to our Gold Coast penthouse.
That was her choice.
She wanted the house in Lincoln Park.
Smaller.
Quieter.
The home we had lived in during our first year of marriage before I decided we needed something more impressive.
I had the staff prepare it.
Then Clara asked me to send most of the staff away.
“You don’t need twelve people in a house this size,” she said.
“I don’t know where anything is.”
“That sounds like an excellent opportunity for personal growth.”
So I learned.
I learned where the coffee filters were.
I learned Clara liked toast almost burned.
I learned the washing machine had seventeen settings, fifteen of which appeared unnecessary.
I learned she preferred the windows open in the morning even when Chicago was cold.