Chapter 9: What Emma Made
Emma's project was a poster.
She had made it in art class — a large sheet of yellow construction paper covered in crayon drawings and careful, slightly uneven letters that her teacher had helped her spell out.
She presented it to me at the kitchen table with both hands, solemn as a diplomat.
"I made it about our family," she said.
I took it from her and looked.
In the center she had drawn three figures: a tall man, a woman in a blue dress, and a small girl with dark curls.
Beneath the figures she had written, in red crayon: *MY FAMLY*.
Around the edges she had drawn things she associated with each of us — a briefcase for Julian, a book for me, a cat we did not own but that Emma had been requesting for several months.
In the bottom right corner, in letters slightly larger than the rest, she had written: *WE ARE SAFE AND HAPPY*.
I sat with that for a moment.
"Do you like it?" Emma asked.
"I love it," I said.
"You can put it on the refrigerator."
"I'm going to put it somewhere better than the refrigerator."
She considered this seriously.
"The office?"
"The office."
She nodded, satisfied, and climbed down from her chair to go find Julian.
I stayed at the table for a moment with the poster in my hands.
*WE ARE SAFE AND HAPPY.*
She had written it the way children write true things — without drama, without qualification, without any awareness that it might once have been otherwise.
Julian came in a few minutes later, Emma trailing behind him with a juice box.
"She told me you're framing it," he said.
"I am."
He looked at the poster.
Something in his expression softened.
"She drew you in blue," he said.
"I was wearing blue at the wedding."
"She notices everything."
Emma had climbed onto the counter to reach the fruit bowl, which she was not supposed to do.
Julian lifted her down without comment and handed her an apple.
"Marcus's attorney called my office this afternoon," Julian said, his voice even.
"He's requesting a delay on the forensic audit.
Citing scheduling conflicts."
"What did your team say?"
"That the timeline is set by the filing, not by Marcus's calendar." Julian leaned against the counter.
"He's going to try to slow everything down.
Buy time to restructure."
"He can't restructure around Daniel's testimony," I said.
"Or Chloe's texts."
"No.
He can't." Julian looked at me.
"Grace thinks the formal charges will come within sixty days.
Possibly sooner if the SEC moves quickly on the account filings."
Emma had settled at the table with her apple and was now drawing something on a napkin with a crayon she had produced from her pocket.
"Sixty days," I said.
"Maybe less."
I looked at the poster still in my hands.
The three figures in the center.
The cat Emma wanted.
The briefcase.
The book.
*WE ARE SAFE AND HAPPY.*
"He's going to call me," I said.
"Before the charges come.
He's going to try something."
"Probably," Julian agreed.
"I want to be ready for it."
Julian nodded slowly.
"What do you want to do?"
I set the poster down carefully on the table.
"I want to let him call," I said.
"And I want Grace on standby when he does."
Julian's phone was already in his hand.
Across the table, Emma held up her napkin drawing.
She had drawn a cat, a house, and what appeared to be a very large apple.
"This one's for Daddy," she announced.
Julian took it with appropriate gravity.
"It's going in my office."
"Next to Mommy's poster?"
"Right next to it."
Emma nodded and took another bite of her apple, entirely satisfied with the order of things.
I watched her and thought: he built his entire plan around the assumption that I had something to lose.
May you like
He was right.
He had just been wrong about what it was.
