Page 171 of Fault Lines
The morning after our fake date, Cam had a string of back-to-back meetings and didn’t even change out of his sleep shorts before settling into the den. He’d upgraded his home office since I’d left, adding a ring light, a fancy microphone, and what looked like a curated library of actual books behind his desk—half legal, half business, all for show. I watched him from the kitchen, sipping tea, and wondered if he knew how much he looked like an actor playing himself.
The house was extra quiet, the walls padded with a hush that felt at once luxurious and temporary. I let myself enjoy it, just for a second. Then my phone rang. The number was local, but unfamiliar. I almost ignored it, thinking it might be another insurance scam, but some impulse made me answer.
“Olivia James?” The voice on the other end was all vowels, slow and deliberate. “This is Marc O’Grady. I’m calling on behalf of the late Richard Porter. He named you as an interested party in his estate, and I’d like to invite you to my office for a discussion. Are you available this afternoon?”
I looked at Cam, his face a mask of executive benevolence as he nodded along to something on his screen. “I guess so,” I said. “What’s this about?”
There was a pause—a microsecond of practiced gravitas. “Mr. Porter updated his will shortly before his passing. Thereare some matters that require your presence. I’d prefer not to discuss them over the phone.”
I felt the old, pinprick anxiety crawl up my throat. “Will it take long?”
“Not at all. I can see you at two thirty. Please bring a government ID.”
I hung up and stared at the clock, the day already mapped out in obligations that suddenly felt completely meaningless. After Cam wrapped his call, I relayed the message. He took it in stride, just nodded and said, “Want me to come?”
I almost said no, because this was the sort of thing you did alone, but then I imagined sitting in a room with a lawyer who used phrases like ‘interested party’ and I said, “Maybe just the first five minutes?”
Cam grinned, and for the first time in years I saw him as the man who’d charmed me in school, the man who’d convinced me that bureaucracy could be a form of love. “I’ll wear a tie,” he said, and then, after a beat, “Maybe.”
∞∞∞
O’Grady’s office was in a low building downtown, the kind with frosted windows and plants that were both too alive and too green to be real. The waiting room had magazines from every quarter except the current one and a receptionist who looked like she’d been photoshopped into her own body. She offered me a water, then a coffee, then a third beverage I’d never heard of, and when I declined them all, she smiled as if I’d passed some secret test.
We didn’t wait long. O’Grady was rail-thin and balding, but had a confidence that filled the room before he even sat down.He greeted Cam, who shook his hand with the too-firm grip he reserved for other men, then gestured for me to follow him into a conference room lined with diplomas and shelf-stable awards.
“Please, sit.” O’Grady motioned to a chair at the head of the table, and I half expected him to slide a contract across the wood and ask me to initial the sticky tabs.
He glanced at Cam. “If you’d prefer to wait outside, I can speak with Olivia alone.”
Cam looked at me for permission. I shrugged. “It’s fine. He can stay.”
O’Grady nodded, then folded his hands on the table, like he was about to sell me something expensive but just out of reach. “Richard Porter was an unusual man. He made some last-minute changes to his will, and he was insistent that the process be handled with, ah, minimal drama. Normally I’d invite all relevant parties for a joint reading, but in this case, Mr. Porter stipulated that Nathaniel and Olivia be kept apart, for reasons I assume you understand.”
I thought of the last time I’d seen Nate—the bruises, the screaming, the blood. I tried not to flinch.
O’Grady cleared his throat. “Nathaniel has already received his bequest and was satisfied with the outcome. There was no contest. He expressed gratitude, in fact.”
This surprised me, but not as much as the next part.
“Mr. Porter also left a personal letter for you.” He reached for a slim, cream-colored envelope, sealed with what looked like an actual wax stamp. My name was written on it, in the sharp, upright script that belonged to the bookseller who’d taught me the proper way to alphabetize Russian novels.
“Would you like to read it now, or in private?”
I took the envelope, fingers trembling. “Now is fine.”
O’Grady nodded and turned away, as if granting me a moment of solitude even though we were both still there.
I broke the seal, careful not to tear the paper, and unfolded the single page inside. The handwriting was steady, almost printed, but there were the faintest signs of a tremor, little wobbles on the descenders.
Olivia,
If you’re reading this, I am dead. I won’t waste your time with platitudes, since I never had patience for them. I want to say two things. The first is: I care for you very much. You came to our family late, but you changed it, for the better, in ways you probably can’t see and Nate never understood. You reminded me of my daughter, and that was not an easy thing to do. She was fierce, she was stubborn, and she loved me so much she gave her child my name to ensure her father’s legacy would not end with her. I always thought that was the best sort of tribute: a name worn and passed down, like a watch that never needed winding.
The second thing is: I’m sorry for what Nate did to you. I know you’ll want to say it wasn’t his fault, or that you could have stopped it, but I want you to let go of that idea. He was always bent, even as a boy. Not broken, but bent, and no one—not me, not his mother, not even you—could straighten him out. You don’t owe him anything. If there’s forgiveness to be found, let it come from higher up.
You’re probably wondering about the store. It’s yours. All of it. Nate never wanted the place—he only worked there for you, though he would never admit it. I’ve arranged for a trust to pay off the remainder of the mortgage and cover all taxes and fees. You can keep it, sell it, or burn it to the ground. I suspect you’ll keep it, because you care more about those dusty old books than you do about yourself. Try not to let it ruin you. And if you ever feel lost, remember that the best thing in my lifewas a collection of misfits, held together by nothing more than stubbornness and a shared roof. That’s all family is.
Be good to yourself. You deserve it.
