How to Say Our Final Goodbye novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Page Six

Clem catches the trust waiver hidden in her severance, tears it up, writes her own on a menu card, and Wyeth arrives to say he won't release her unless she asks him herself.

I looked down at the letter.

Then I folded it in half and put it in my blazer pocket.

"The guests on three are asleep right over that ballroom," I said. "You can come back at nine like normal people."

The foreman looked at the doorman, then at me.

"Lady, your boss signed that."

"My boss isn't here. I am."

The doorman stepped up beside me in his green coat.

He was sixty-eight and about half the foreman's size.

He folded his white-gloved hands in front of him and didn't say a word.

The foreman sighed and waved his crew back toward the door.

"Doesn't matter," he said over his shoulder. "July tenth, it's ours."

The brass door turned and they were gone.

The doorman looked at me sideways.

"Demolition, Miss Clem?"

"Not if I can help it."

He nodded once and went back to his post.

I took the stairs up to the Lantern Room alone.

Forty lanterns hung from the ceiling in the dark, paper and brass, the way they had since 1926.

My mother used to light them one at a time with a long pole while I watched from the floor.

I stood in the middle of the parquet floor and did the math.

Twenty-seven days until my father sold this room.

Twenty-nine until it would have been mine.

In my first life I hadn't known the date.

I'd found out from a newspaper.

Now I knew it, and I knew who was lying, and I knew how it ended if I did nothing.

That was more than I'd had the first time.

Sunday brunch at the house in Lake Forest was served on the back terrace, under a white umbrella, facing the lake.

My father had called at seven and said, "Bring a pen."

So I brought a pen.

The stepmother was in linen.

Kirsten was in yellow, filming her eggs Benedict for her eighty thousand followers.

"Brunch with my family before the big news," she said to her phone, and tilted it toward me. "Say hi, Clemmie."

I took the phone out of her hand and set it face down on the table.

"I told you not to call me that."

She went pink and looked at her mother.

My father's lawyer arrived at eleven with a leather folder and a smile he probably charged for.

He laid a stack of paper beside my plate.

"Miss Fairbairn. This is the agreement your father discussed. A full mutual release of family obligations, as you requested. I've flagged where you sign."

There were little yellow tabs.

Six of them.

"And the money?" I asked.

"Paid by wire to an account of your choosing, the morning of your departure. Page eight."

I picked up the stack and started reading.

"It's all standard," the lawyer said. "You don't need to go through every..."

"I'm a hotel manager. I read every line of every contract or a wedding party steals the towels."

Kirsten giggled.

Nobody else did.

Page one was my name. Clementine Fairbairn, hereinafter the Daughter.

Page three was the part where I couldn't use the family name in business.

Page five was the part where I couldn't speak to the press.

Page six was one long paragraph in very small type.

I read it slowly.

Then I read it again, out loud.

"The Daughter waives any and all claims, present or future, to any trust established for her by her late mother."

I turned the page toward him.

"Including but not limited to shares of Fairbairn Hotels and the real property known as the Bellmore."

The housekeeper pouring coffee stopped pouring.

My father put his fork down.

"It's boilerplate," the lawyer said.

"It's my mother's hotel," I said. "On page six. In size eight font."

"Clem, it's a formality," my father said. "You're leaving the country. What do you care about an old building?"

"If it's a formality, you won't mind losing it."

I stood up.

I tore the stack in half.

It was thick and it took two tries, and the second try was very satisfying.

I dropped the halves on his plate, on top of his eggs.

Kirsten actually gasped.

The stepmother said, "Roland," in a warning voice.

I picked up one of the little cardstock menus by Kirsten's plate.

Eggs Benedict. Melon. Mimosas. Sunday, June 14.

I turned it over and wrote on the back in block capitals, leaning on the table.

I, Roland Fairbairn, agree that as of today I am no longer the father of Clementine Fairbairn, and she is no longer my daughter. I will pay her one billion dollars. She will leave the country by July 11. Nothing else changes hands.

I signed it and dated it.

Then I turned it around and slid it across to him with my pen on top.

"There. One paragraph. No page six."

He stared at it.

"This isn't a legal document."

"Your lawyer's right there. He can witness it."

The lawyer looked at the menu card.

My father looked at the housekeepers, who were not even pretending to work anymore.

He looked at Kirsten, who was mouthing, Daddy, just sign it.

I saw him do the math.

A billion dollars was nothing if he never meant to pay it.

He picked up the pen and signed.

The lawyer, sweating, signed under him.

I folded the card and put it in my blazer pocket next to the survey letter.

"Thank you," I said. "Enjoy your eggs."

"Sit down, Clem," my father said. "We haven't discussed the wedding."

"I'm not invited to the wedding. I'm leaving the country, remember?"

"You'll be there to hand him over," Kirsten said sweetly. "Wyeth's family will expect it. You could even be a bridesmaid."

"I'd rather be the cake."

The terrace door opened behind me.

Footsteps crossed the flagstones.

"That won't be necessary," Wyeth said.

He was in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, no tie.

He was holding a single sheet of thick cream paper.

He laid it on the table beside my father's ruined eggs.

"Our engagement contract," he said. "Signed by my grandmother and by you, sir, two years ago. It names Clementine Fairbairn. Not your other daughter."

Kirsten's smile froze.

"So change it," my father said. "That's what lawyers are for."

"It needs my signature to change," Wyeth said. "And I'm not signing anything until Clem asks me herself."

He looked at me.

"Tomorrow. Noon. At my grandmother's table. To my face."

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