Chapter 4
“One truth at a time.”
It was not the answer I wanted.
It was probably the answer we needed.
Thomas arrived at Hawthorne Ridge the following afternoon.
I asked Matthew to come as well.
Not because I expected trouble.
Because I had finally learned that family secrets became dangerous when conversations happened behind closed doors with only one version of events present.
We met in the library.
Kate sat beside the window with a cup of tea.
Matthew stood near the fireplace.
Thomas remained by the door until I gestured toward a chair.
He was fifty-eight, broad-shouldered, silver-haired, and normally impossible to unsettle.
He had worked for my father before working for me.
He had taught me how to drive on ice.
He had attended my university graduation.
He had stood ten feet behind Kate and me on our wedding day.
When I placed his handwritten note on the table, he closed his eyes.
“I wondered when you’d find that.”
Kate spoke first.
“Why did you write it?”
Thomas sat down.
“Because I made a mistake.”
“That sentence told me Adrian wanted me to leave him.”
“I know.”
“Was that what you intended?”
“No.”
I studied him.
“Then explain.”
Thomas looked at me.
“Your father called me after you left for Europe.”
That was unexpected.
“My father?”
“He was worried about the Bergen negotiations.”
“What does that have to do with Kate?”
“Everything, apparently.”
Thomas leaned forward.
“Your father believed you were distracted.”
I nearly laughed.
The same word my mother had used.
“By my wife.”
“Yes.”
Matthew muttered something under his breath.
Thomas continued.
“Your father told me that the negotiations had become sensitive and that personal disruptions needed to be minimized until you returned.”
“And you interpreted that as permission to interfere with my marriage?”
“No. At first, it meant screening calls through the office.”
My stomach tightened.
“What calls?”
Thomas looked at Kate.
“Yours.”
Silence.
Kate placed her cup on the table.
“You blocked my calls?”
“Not directly. Mr. Avery’s European line had been routed through the executive system for security. I instructed the office to mark non-emergency personal calls for later response.”
I stared at him.
“You decided whether my wife constituted an emergency.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Thomas’s answer came quietly.
“Because that was the culture your father created, and you continued.”
The words landed harder because they were true.
He looked at me steadily.
“You taught everyone around you that protecting Adrian Avery meant removing problems before they reached him.”
Kate looked at me.
I couldn’t disagree.
Thomas continued.
“When Mrs. Avery came to the office, she was upset. She wanted correspondence and asked why you weren’t responding.”
“So you wrote the note.”
“Yes.”
“Why those words?”
“Because I had spoken to you two days earlier.”
I searched my memory.
“You said you needed distance to think.”
I remembered.
I had been talking about the Bergen deal.
Or had I?
Perhaps I had mentioned Kate.
“I assumed you meant your marriage.”
“And instead of asking?”
“I acted.”
There was no defensiveness in his voice.
That almost made it worse.
“What about my letters?”
“I didn’t intercept them.”
“My mother took one.”
Thomas nodded.
“I learned that later.”
“And the others?”
“Three were mailed.”
Kate frowned.
“I never received them.”
“One came back to the office because Hawthorne Ridge’s forwarding information hadn’t been updated.”
He looked toward the sealed envelope Kate had opened the previous night.
“I brought it here.”
“Why hide it?” Kate asked.
“I didn’t.”
“Where did you put it?”
“On the writing desk in this room.”
Kate and I looked at each other.
The box had been beneath that desk.
Someone cleaning the room must have placed the loose envelope with Kate’s letters.
An ordinary explanation.
Almost disappointingly ordinary.
“And the other two?” I asked.
Thomas shook his head.
“According to the mail log, they were sent to the Manhattan residence.”
Kate’s expression changed.
“I had already moved out.”
“They may have been forwarded incorrectly or lost.”
Seven months of pain.
And part of it might have come down to bad timing and a forwarding address.
There was something strangely humbling about that.
We wanted disasters to have architects.
Sometimes they were simply built from people making small choices without asking enough questions.
Thomas looked at Kate.
“I owe you an apology.”
She was silent.
“I believed I was protecting Adrian’s interests,” he continued. “I should have understood that his marriage was not one of my assignments.”
“No,” I said. “You should have understood because I should have made it clear.”
Thomas looked at me.
“That doesn’t excuse me.”
“No. But I’m not pretending I had nothing to do with creating the situation.”
Matthew glanced between us.
“This may be the healthiest conversation this family has had since approximately 1987.”
Nobody laughed.
May you like
Then Kate did.
A second later, Matthew joined her.
