Chapter 6: The Folder on the Table
Vivienne came down the stairs in a cream blouse and tailored trousers, her hair smooth, her face composed.
She had taken exactly nineteen minutes.
She looked like someone arriving at a business meeting she expected to control.
She stopped when she saw James.
"James." A small, practiced smile.
"It's been a while."
"Vivienne."
She looked at Richard.
"I'd like to call my attorney before we begin."
"Of course," Richard said.
"We'll wait."
She pulled out her phone and stepped toward the sitting room.
Richard heard the murmur of her voice — low, quick, the tone of someone delivering a situation report rather than asking for help.
She was back in four minutes.
"He'll be here within the hour."
"We can start without him," Richard said.
"Nothing we discuss this morning is binding.
This is just a conversation."
She looked at him for a moment, weighing it.
Then she sat down across from James at the dining table.
Richard sat beside James and placed the folder on the table between them.
Vivienne's eyes went to it immediately.
She didn't reach for it.
"Vivienne," Richard said, "I'd like to give you the chance to tell me yourself.
Before we go any further."
"Tell you what?"
He opened the folder to the second page.
Slid it toward her.
She looked down at it.
Her face didn't collapse.
That was the thing Richard would remember later — it didn't collapse.
It went very still, the way a surface goes still when everything underneath it has already decided what to do.
"Where did you get this?" she said.
"That's not the question I asked."
"This is an invasion of—"
"Vivienne."
She looked up.
"I'm giving you a chance to talk to me.
Not to James.
Not to your attorney.
To me." His voice was level.
"How long?"
A long pause.
"Eight months," she said.
"The apartment.
What about him?"
Another pause.
Shorter this time.
"Longer."
Richard nodded once.
He had expected it.
He had told himself he had expected it.
It still landed somewhere specific and quiet in his chest.
"And Sophie?" he said.
"While you were managing that — Sophie was here."
"I was here too."
"You were here." He looked at her.
"And you let her go hungry."
"That has nothing to do with—"
"It has everything to do with it." His voice stayed flat.
"You were checked out.
You resented being here.
And Sophie paid for it."
Vivienne set her jaw.
"You were never home.
I was managing everything alone.
Do you have any idea what that—"
"I'm not interested in that argument today."
"Of course you're not.
You want to be the victim.
You want to be the devoted father who swooped in.
You were gone, Richard.
For months at a time.
I was—"
"I have thirty-seven hours of footage," he said.
"Of you.
In this house.
With my daughter.
I don't need your version."
Silence fell over the table.
James hadn't moved.
He had his pen out but hadn't written anything.
He was watching Vivienne the way someone watches a door they're not sure is locked.
Vivienne looked at the folder again.
Then at Richard.
When she spoke, her voice had changed.
The composure was still there, but underneath it now was something with edges.
"What do you want?"
"I want you out of this house by the end of the week.
I want a separation agreement signed before your attorney leaves today.
I want full physical custody of Sophie, with supervised visitation pending evaluation."
"Supervised—" She stopped.
"You can't be serious."
"The footage goes to the evaluator.
So does the note."
"That note was—"
"*She eats when she behaves.*" He said it quietly.
"That's what the evaluator will read.
That's what a judge will read."
Vivienne's hands were flat on the table.
She was very still.
"You're going to destroy me over a bad few months."
"I'm going to protect my daughter."
"She's fine."
"She was eating from the dog's bowl."
The words sat between them.
Vivienne looked away first.
"I want a fair settlement," she said.
"I want what I'm entitled to."
"James has the proposal ready.
It's reasonable.
I'm not trying to leave you with nothing."
She looked at James.
He slid a document across the table without a word.
She picked it up.
Read the first page.
Turned to the second.
Her attorney arrived forty minutes later.
They spent three hours at that table.
At 1:17 p.m., Vivienne signed.
She stood up, straightened her blouse, and looked at Richard one final time.
"For what it's worth," she said, "I didn't hate her."
Richard said nothing.
"I just didn't want to be here anymore." Her voice was almost quiet.
Almost honest.
"And I didn't know how to say that."
"You could have said it to me."
She picked up her bag.
"Would you have listened?"
He didn't answer.
She walked to the door.
Opened it.
Paused with her hand on the frame.
"Tell Sophie—" She stopped.
"Never mind."
The door closed.
Richard stood at the window and watched her car pull out of the drive.
Then he heard small feet on the stairs.
Sophie appeared in the hallway, still in her pajamas, holding a stuffed rabbit by one ear.
"Is she gone?"
"She's gone."
Sophie looked at the front door for a moment.
Then at him.
"Is she coming back?"
Richard crouched down to her level.
"Not to live here.
No."
Sophie considered this with the gravity that six-year-olds bring to serious things.
"Okay," she said finally.
Then she held out the rabbit.
"Can we have lunch?
I'm hungry."
Richard took the rabbit in one hand and her hand in the other.
May you like
"Yeah, bug," he said.
"Let's have lunch."
