Chapter 52: The Stepmother

Mrs. Shen's signed statement lay in the captain's folder, with Gu's name in it, and Shen Yan's promise to tell Rui was still unkept.

Rui could wait a few days.

This room could not.

Her rooms were in the east wing of Cedar Hill, behind a white door with a brass handle.

Shen Yan had not gone through that door since the day he and Xiao Chen first came back to the estate.

Now the housekeeper had propped it open, and the ramp she had laid at the side entrance still smelled of fresh timber.

"Thirty-five weeks," he told himself. "Two hours. The doctor said two hours."

He rolled the chair into the dressing room under his own power.

Xiao Chen stood in the corridor outside.

He had said, "I'll be right here," once, and then he had said nothing more, and Shen Yan was grateful for it.

The dressing room was bright and neat.

There was a long mirror, a tray of hairpins, and a row of silk scarves on a rail.

The window looked out over the lawn, where Gu had eaten loquats and promised the vote would take care of itself.

Shen Yan wheeled across to the basin in the corner.

It was white marble with a silver tap.

He had stood here at fifteen, holding out his palm.

She had put the foil strip in it with a glass of water, and she had stroked his hair.

Every morning, for five years.

He looked at the basin and waited for the shaking to come.

It did not come.

He had braced himself for rage, or for his own sick body to remember.

What he felt instead was tired, and clear, and quite old.

He gripped the rim of the basin and found he did not need her to be sorry.

He only needed to be finished.

The bond stirred, soft and bright, and he knew Xiao Chen had felt the change.

Shen Yan breathed out.

"I carried it," he said aloud, to the empty room.

The tap dripped once.

He turned the chair round and rolled back across the carpet.

At the door he took the old brass key out of the lock, where it had stayed for six months.

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