Chapter 8: Monday Morning
Patricia Howe's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building downtown.
Clean lines.
Quiet carpet.
The kind of office that made you feel like things could be handled.
Daniel had brought everything.
A folder two inches thick.
Printed emails, dates, names, the original filings, a written timeline he had spent Sunday putting together at the kitchen table while I sat across from him and didn't speak and didn't leave.
Patricia read through the summary pages while we sat across from her.
"You understand," she said, without looking up, "that voluntary disclosure doesn't guarantee a particular outcome."
"I understand," Daniel said.
"But you're prepared to proceed."
"Yes."
She looked up.
"And your wife is here because—"
"Because I asked her to be," I said.
Patricia looked at me for a moment.
Then she nodded and turned back to Daniel.
"All right.
Here's what we're going to do."
She walked us through it.
The disclosure process.
The regulatory body.
The likely sequence of events.
She was direct and she didn't soften things.
I appreciated that.
When she finished, Daniel asked, "What about the employee who has copies of the documentation?"
"That's a separate matter," Patricia said.
"If he attempts to use what he has after you've already disclosed, his leverage disappears.
He'd be handing over information that's already on the record.
And if he's already shared it with a journalist—" She paused.
"Do you have documentation of that?"
I placed Grace's written summary on the desk.
Patricia read it.
Her expression didn't change, but she read it twice.
"This is good," she said.
"This is very good.
If he moves forward with the journalist after today, he's looking at a breach of contract claim, potential criminal exposure depending on what he shared and when, and the end of any employment reference from your company." She looked at Daniel.
"He may not know that his window closed this morning."
"He'll figure it out," I said.
"They usually do," Patricia said.
We left at eleven-fifteen.
On the sidewalk outside, Daniel stopped walking.
I stopped too.
"Emily," he said.
"Don't."
"I need to say it."
"Daniel—"
"I am sorry." His voice was quiet and even.
"Not just for what happened with Katherine.
For letting it go on as long as it did.
For letting Jason into our lives because I was afraid.
For not telling you any of it." He looked at me.
"You deserved better than all of it."
A cab went past.
Someone was walking a dog on the other side of the street.
"I know," I said.
We stood there for a moment.
"What happens now?" he asked.
"Now we go home," I said.
"And then we figure out what comes after that."
It wasn't forgiveness.
It wasn't a door closing.
It was something more honest than either of those things — two people standing on a sidewalk in the morning light, deciding whether to keep walking in the same direction.
I started walking.
After a moment, Daniel fell into step beside me.
Three days later, Jason was formally notified that his employment was being terminated for breach of contract.
His attorney sent a letter.
Patricia responded the same afternoon.
The letter was not answered again.
Katherine called my cell phone on a Thursday evening.
I let it ring.
May you like
She left no message.
I didn't need one.
