Goodbye to the Man Who Betrayed Us novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Handled

Grace tells the whole Chen dinner table she won't sign and she's taking Lily; on the stairs Vivian whispers that Grace's mother looked right at her through the glass.

I didn't answer the text.

I drove Lily home to Pacific Heights with the black card still caught in my cardigan.

For seven years we'd lived on the third floor of his father's house.

Daniel said it was temporary the day we moved in.

Then Vivian married his father, and he stopped talking about moving out at all.

The dining room lights were on when I pulled in.

Monday dinner. Raymond never missed it, not even this week.

I carried Lily up the back stairs and set her on our bed with her whale.

"Count the steps to the bathroom for me," I said. "Then brush your teeth. I'll be right back."

"Eleven," she said. "I already know it's eleven, Mama."

"Then count them faster."

She giggled.

I went down the front stairs instead of the back.

I wanted them to see me coming.

The table seated sixteen and four people were at it.

Raymond Chen sat at the head, wide as a door in a gray cardigan, reading glasses hanging on a cord.

Daniel sat at his right hand.

Daniel's lawyer sat beside Daniel, still in his tie.

And Vivian sat at the other end in a cream silk robe, white pads taped over both eyes.

Daniel was cutting her chicken for her.

He had a fork in one hand and her plate pulled toward him.

He'd never once cut Lily's food.

The housekeeper saw me in the doorway and froze with a water pitcher.

Daniel looked up.

His face did something fast and then went smooth.

"Grace. Good. Sit down, we were just talking about you."

"I heard."

I didn't sit.

I stood behind the empty chair at the middle of the table and put both hands on it.

"You can tell your lawyer I'm not signing either statement."

The lawyer set his fork down.

"Mrs. Chen, those documents protect your family."

"My mother is my family," I said. "She's in a drawer at the hospital you just left."

Vivian turned her taped face toward my voice.

Her mouth made a small, hurt shape.

"Grace, I'm so sorry for your loss. I've been praying for your mom."

"Don't."

It came out flat.

The housekeeper set the pitcher down very quietly and left.

"I filed for divorce this afternoon," I said. "Lily and I are leaving."

Daniel laughed once, through his nose.

"Leaving to where? You have no money. You haven't worked in seven years."

"I worked from the day I could reach my mother's counter. You just never came to see it."

He stood up and buttoned his jacket.

He always buttoned his jacket before he said something ugly.

"If you take my daughter out of this house, I'll have custody by Friday."

"Any judge in this city will look at you and see a grieving woman who can't think straight."

"Then let him look."

"Her. The family court judge is a her. And she plays golf with my father."

Every head turned to the end of the table.

Raymond hadn't moved.

He sat with his big hands folded on the cloth.

He wasn't looking at Daniel.

He was looking at me, steady and hard.

I waited for him to say something.

He picked up his glass of water and drank it.

"Dad," Daniel said.

"I heard you," Raymond said.

That was all.

I couldn't read it, and I didn't have time to try.

"Lily's going first on the next donation," Daniel said to me. "I told you that. What more do you want?"

"Her grandmother's eyes."

He didn't have an answer.

Vivian reached across the table, feeling for his hand.

He gave it to her without looking.

I turned and went up the front stairs.

I packed one suitcase for me and two for Lily.

Her whale went in my purse so it couldn't get lost.

I didn't take a single piece of jewelry Daniel had bought.

When I came back to the landing with the first bag, Vivian was on the stairs.

She'd come up alone, one hand on the banister and one on the wall.

She was barefoot and moving slowly, the robe loose at her shoulders.

I stopped two steps above her.

She tipped her bandaged face up toward me.

Her voice dropped so low I had to lean in.

"Your mother looked right at me," she whispered. "Through the glass."

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