Chapter 4: You'll Be Back by Christmas

My mother's text came in at nine on Sunday morning.

Brunch at noon. Come home and we'll talk like adults.

I read it twice in Greta's kitchen.

"You're not going," Greta said.

"She wrote Sunday," I said. "He wrote Sunday. I want to watch them wait for me."

I took the subway to Brooklyn Heights in a borrowed sweatshirt and walked up the steps of the brownstone I grew up in.

The dining room table was set for six.

My parents sat at the ends.

Tobias sat with his eyes on his plate.

Preston and Lorna sat side by side, and her hand was in his.

She was wearing a blue cardigan and no makeup, and she looked about sixteen.

"Mireille," my mother said, and her smile did not move at all. "Sit."

I stayed standing.

"Take the video down," my father said. "Today, before noon."

"It's a recording," I said. "It's you."

"It's a private conversation, and you stole it." He folded his napkin. "Our lawyers are already drafting."

"Your lawyers can't draft a different voice onto it."

Preston leaned forward with a patient face.

"Mar, I'll make this easy. Take it down, and Lorna will apologize in person. We can all move on."

I looked at Lorna.

"Do you have your divorce decree?" I asked her.

The table went silent.

Lorna's eyes went huge and wet.

"I'm sorry?"

"Your divorce," I said. "From the man you said stalks you. I'd like to see the paper."

"It's in storage," she whispered. "I didn't think I would ever need it."

"That is a cruel thing to ask a woman who's been through what she's been through," my father said, and my mother put an arm around her.

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