Chapter 5: Rita Makes Her Move
Rita Caldwell was thirty-four years old, and she had learned early that the most effective way to handle a problem was to walk directly toward it before it had time to organize itself.
She called Sarah's number at two o'clock that afternoon.
Sarah answered on the third ring.
"I think we should meet," Rita said.
No introduction.
No pretense.
"I know who this is," Sarah said.
"Good.
Then you know I'm not calling to apologize."
"I didn't expect you to."
"I'm calling because Victor is not thinking clearly right now, and someone needs to be." Rita's voice was even, almost businesslike.
"He's going to do something stupid with a lawyer and make this worse for everyone."
"That's his choice to make."
"It affects me too." A pause.
"I've been with Victor for two years.
I'm not going anywhere.
And I think you and I both know that the house was already finished between the two of you long before December."
Sarah said nothing.
"I'm not your enemy," Rita continued.
"You were in the parking lot with white roses when my husband was discharged from a surgery he survived because of my kidney," Sarah said.
"I'm not interested in reclassifying that."
Silence on the line.
"What do you actually want?" Rita asked.
"Because it's not the house.
You torched the house."
"The insurance settlement for the house," Sarah said, "is considerably more than the house was worth after Victor deferred maintenance for six years.
So in a sense, he did me a favor."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"You're not what I expected," Rita said.
"No," Sarah agreed.
"I don't imagine I am."
"Victor told me you were—" Rita stopped.
"Furniture," Sarah said.
"Yes.
I heard him say it."
The line was quiet for a moment.
"He's scared," Rita said.
"Whatever the doctors told him this morning, it scared him.
He won't tell me what it was."
"Talk to his doctors."
"They won't speak to me.
I'm not family."
"No," Sarah said.
"You're not."
Rita's voice dropped slightly.
"Is he going to be all right?"
Sarah looked out the window of the small room she had rented two days ago in a guesthouse in Somerville.
The street below was ordinary.
A woman walking a dog.
A boy on a bicycle.
The unremarkable machinery of a Tuesday afternoon.
"I genuinely don't know," Sarah said.
"That's the truth."
"But you know something."
"I know what was in my medical file in December," Sarah said.
"What Victor's body does with that information going forward is not something I can predict or control."
"You should have told him," Rita said.
Her voice had lost its businesslike edge.
Something rawer had replaced it.
"Perhaps," Sarah said.
"But he should have told me about you two years ago.
We all have our silences, Rita."
The line went quiet again.
"He's going to fight the divorce," Rita said finally.
"He told me this morning.
He said he'd tie it up for years if he had to."
Sarah felt something settle in her chest.
Not fear.
Something closer to readiness.
"Then he'll fight it," she said.
"Grace has handled longer cases than this."
"He'll go after your finances.
Your contributions to his developments — he has a different version of that history."
"I'm sure he does." Sarah paused.
"Do you know what a paper trail is, Rita?"
No answer.
"Thirty years of bank statements," Sarah said.
"Thirty years of joint tax returns.
Thirty years of wire transfers, property records, and my salary deposits going directly into accounts that funded his first four developments." She kept her voice level.
"I didn't just live in that house.
I built what paid for it."
Rita was quiet for a long time.
"He's not going to win this," Rita said at last.
It didn't sound like a threat.
It sounded like a woman doing arithmetic and not liking the result.
"No," Sarah said.
"He's not."
"What happens to him?" Rita asked.
"After.
With the medical thing."
Sarah closed her eyes briefly.
"That depends on his doctors, his choices, and whatever luck he has left," she said.
"I used mine up on the operating table."
She ended the call.
Set the phone on the windowsill.
Below, the woman with the dog had stopped to let the animal sniff at a patch of frozen grass.
The boy on the bicycle had turned the corner and was gone.
Sarah's phone lit up again thirty seconds later.
Not Rita.
Not Victor.
A number she recognized immediately.
Her daughter, Nora.
Sarah's hand went still over the phone.
Nora, who had not spoken to her in three years.
Nora, who had taken Victor's side in the argument that had split the family the winter before last.
Nora, who had called Sarah cold and said things that a daughter should not say to a mother.
The phone rang four times.
Five.
Sarah picked it up.
"Mom," Nora said.
Her voice was different.
Smaller.
"I just saw the news about the house.
I didn't know.
May you like
I didn't know any of it." A breath.
"Can I come to you?"
