Chapter 5 - The Call He Swore Never Happened
Marcus would not play the recording immediately.
That made me angrier than I expected.
"You just told me he lied."
"I told you Eleanor reached him."
"Then let me hear what he said."
Marcus looked toward the altar.
"She left instructions about the audio."
"More instructions?"
"Yes."
I rubbed both hands over my face.
For months before her death, Eleanor had become obsessed with documenting everything.
At the time, I thought it was fear.
She labeled medication drawers even when I knew them by heart.
She wrote dates on envelopes.
She asked nurses for copies of discharge papers we already had online.
She made me photograph utility bills after I paid them.
Once, when I teased her about turning the dining room into an archive, she looked at me and said something I had not understood.
"When people decide you are weak, paper becomes your voice."
Now I understood.
"What were her instructions?" I asked.
Marcus handed me the memorandum.
The first paragraph authorized him to preserve the audio as potential evidence relating to unauthorized financial activity.
The second paragraph instructed him not to release the complete file to Julian until the initial accounting demand had been served.
The third paragraph was addressed to me.
Elena is not to hear this unless Julian denies receiving notice of my condition.
I read the sentence twice.
"He denied it this morning."
"Yes."
Marcus opened his laptop.
Nadia pulled out a chair for me.
I sat.
Marcus clicked a folder with Eleanor's initials.
There were more files inside than I expected.
Voice memos.
Scanned letters.
Photographs.
PDFs.
A folder called NORTHSTAR.
Another called JULIAN CALLS.
He opened the second one.
The file was dated eleven months earlier at 2:17 a.m.
I remembered that time because I had been standing beside Eleanor's ICU bed watching numbers change on a monitor I did not understand.
Her blood pressure had dropped twice.
The infectious disease specialist had told me not to leave.
I had called Julian until my phone battery reached three percent.
At 2:11 a.m., I went downstairs to find a charger.
I was gone for less than fifteen minutes.
That was when she called him.
Marcus pressed play.
For several seconds there was only hospital noise.
A machine beeped steadily in the background.
Fabric rustled.
Then Eleanor's weak voice filled the room.
"Julian?"
A pause followed.
Then my husband's voice answered.
Not a voicemail greeting.
Not a recorded system message.
Julian.
"Mom?"
My fingers went numb.
Eleanor breathed heavily.
"I'm in intensive care."
There was music behind him.
Not loud music.
Restaurant music.
Glasses clinked.
Someone laughed.
"What happened?" Julian asked.
"Infection."
"Where's Elena?"
"Getting a charger."
His sigh came clearly through the speaker.
"Then she has it handled."
I closed my eyes.
Eleanor was silent for a few seconds.
"They said I might not make the morning."
This time Julian did not answer immediately.
I heard another voice near him.
A woman's voice.
I could not make out the words.
Then Julian spoke away from the phone.
"Give me one minute."
He returned to his mother.
"Mom, doctors always tell you the worst-case scenario."
"I want you to come home."
"I can't fly tonight."
"Tomorrow."
"I have meetings."
"Cancel them."
His tone changed.
It became the tone he used when he believed someone was being unreasonable.
"I can't keep blowing up my life every time there's a medical scare."
My stomach turned.
Eleanor said nothing.
Julian continued.
"That's why Elena is there."
Marcus glanced at me.
I kept listening.
"She's your wife," Eleanor said.
"Exactly."
"Not your employee."
"I didn't say she was."
"You act like it."
Another pause.
Then Eleanor asked the question that changed the rest of her life.
"Are you coming home?"
Julian exhaled.
"Not right now."
"Even if I die?"
His answer came so quietly I almost missed it.
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Use death to make me feel guilty."
Eleanor inhaled sharply.
The monitor in the background began beeping faster.
"I am not using death."
Her voice trembled.
"I am telling you I am afraid."
Julian lowered his voice.
"I have my own life here."
A woman's voice came closer.
This time I heard one word clearly.
Baby.
My eyes opened.
Marcus paused the recording.
"That's enough for now."
"No."
"Elena."
"Play it."
He looked at Nadia.
She shook her head slightly.
"You don't need the rest today."
"I needed to know this eleven months ago."
My voice broke on the final word.
I hated that.
I hated that Julian could still reach into a room he was not in and make me feel foolish.
Marcus closed the laptop.
"The remaining portion deals with the transfers."
I stared at the black screen.
"He knew."
"Yes."
"He knew she might die."
"Yes."
"Then he let me call him seventeen times."
Marcus did not answer.
He did not need to.
I stood and walked to the altar.
Eleanor smiled from the photograph in the cream dress.
I remembered the morning after that call.
She had survived the night.
When I returned with the charger, she told me she had been dreaming.
She never said she had spoken to Julian.
She protected him even from the woman cleaning blood from the tape on her arm.
"Why didn't she tell me?"
Marcus came to stand beside me.
"She was ashamed."
"Of him?"
"Of herself."
I turned toward him.
"Why?"
"Because she had spent years defending him to you."
That hurt more than I expected.
Eleanor had defended Julian constantly.
When he forgot anniversaries, she said he was overwhelmed.
When he skipped Christmas, she said flights were expensive.
When he stopped sending money, she said Canada must be harder than we understood.
When he ignored her calls, she blamed time zones.
She had been protecting her son with explanations long after the facts stopped deserving them.
"What happened after the call?" I asked.
"Two days later, she asked me to review every account she owned."
"And you found Northstar."
"Eventually."
Marcus's expression darkened.
"We first found something smaller."
"What?"
"A recurring payment to a condo in Toronto."
I frowned.
Julian had told me his company provided housing.
"How much?"
"Seven thousand eight hundred dollars a month."
I stared at him.
"From Eleanor's account?"
"From a joint investment account she had opened with Julian years earlier for estate planning purposes."
"She knew about it?"
"Not the condo."
My chest tightened.
Seven thousand eight hundred dollars a month.
While I was comparing generic medications because Eleanor's copays had increased.
"Who lived there?"
Marcus hesitated.
"The lease listed Julian."
He looked toward the doorway Chloe had left through.
"And Chloe Mercer."
The baby word in the recording came back to me.
Eleven months ago.
Long before Chloe could have been pregnant with the newborn she carried into my house.
"How long had they been together?"
"We don't know."
"Did Eleanor know?"
"She suspected."
"And that is why she changed the trust?"
"It was one reason."
I looked at him.
"One?"
Marcus nodded.
"The financial audit led to something else."
Before he could explain, my phone rang.
Julian's name appeared on the screen.
I almost declined it.
Marcus stopped me.
"Answer."
I put the call on speaker.
"What?"
Julian did not waste time.
"Marcus referenced an audio file in the accounting demand."
His voice was tight.
"What did you hear?"
I looked at Marcus.
He nodded once.
"Enough."
Silence.
Then Julian spoke more softly.
"Elena, that call wasn't what it sounded like."
I laughed.
It came out colder than I intended.
"You told your dying mother not to use death to make you feel guilty."
"She wasn't dying."
"You didn't know that."
"She survived another eleven months."
"That does not make you right."
His breathing changed.
"Did you hear the whole call?"
There was fear beneath the question.
Not shame.
Fear.
I looked at Marcus again.
"No."
Julian exhaled too quickly.
"Good."
Then he caught himself.
"I mean, there is context you don't understand."
I felt every muscle in my body become alert.
"What context?"
"Nothing."
"You just said there was context."
"Forget it."
"Julian."
He ended the call.
I lowered the phone.
Marcus stared at the dark screen.
"He is afraid of the second half."
"Why?"
May you like
Marcus looked at the laptop.
"I think it's time we find out."
