Chapter 9: The Last Thing Nathan Said
The formal @ssault charge was filed on a Thursday.
I was not in the room when it happened.
I was in a hotel in Santa Monica — my father had insisted I leave the Beverly Hills house, and for once I didn't argue.
The hotel was quiet.
The room faced the ocean.
I ordered room service and ate it sitting on the floor by the window, watching the water, and didn't think about anything in particular for almost an hour.
My phone rang at four in the afternoon.
It was a number I recognized.
Nathan's personal cell.
Not his attorney's line.
His own phone.
I answered.
"They arrested me this morning," he said.
"I've been processed and released on bail.
My attorney is already filing motions." A pause.
"I wanted you to hear it from me."
"All right," I said.
"The federal charge is separate from the @ssault charge.
My attorney says they'll likely be tried separately." His voice was controlled.
Careful.
The voice of a man who had been coached on what to say and was trying to stay inside the lines.
"Sophia, I want to ask you one thing.
One thing only, and then I won't call again."
I waited.
"The @ssault charge," he said.
"The recording.
I know I can't ask you to drop it.
I know I have no right to ask you anything." A long pause.
"But I need to know — is this about justice?
Or is it about destruction?"
I looked out at the ocean.
"Those aren't the same question," I said.
"Sophia—"
"Justice means you face what you did in a court of law, in front of a judge, with the recording as evidence, and the consequences are decided by people whose job it is to decide them." I kept my voice level.
"Destruction would mean I used my father's resources to go beyond what the law requires.
To take things that weren't part of the legal case.
To make sure there was nothing left of you at all." I paused.
"I'm not doing that, Nathan.
I never wanted that."
He was quiet for a long time.
"Then what do you want?" he asked.
"I want you to stand in a courtroom and say out loud what you did.
Not to me.
Not to my father's lawyers.
To a record that exists permanently." I paused.
"I want the next woman to be able to find your name if she looks."
Another long silence.
"I understand," he said.
"Good."
"Sophia." His voice dropped.
The coaching fell away.
What was underneath it was raw and tired and smaller than anything I had heard from him before.
"I know this doesn't matter.
I know it doesn't change anything.
But I want to say it anyway." A breath.
"I was afraid of you.
From the beginning.
Not of your father.
Of you.
Of how clearly you saw things.
Of how little you needed from me that I was actually capable of giving." His voice broke slightly on the last word.
"I couldn't make myself bigger, so I made you smaller.
And I am sorry.
I know that's not enough.
I know it doesn't—"
"Nathan," I said quietly.
He stopped.
"I heard you," I said.
"I believe you mean it.
And it's not enough.
But I heard you."
I ended the call.
I sat on the floor by the window for a long time after that.
The ocean moved the way it always does, without caring about any of it.
The light changed.
The water went from blue to grey to something that had no name.
I thought about the man who had stayed up until two in the morning talking about what he wanted to build.
The man who had cried at his grandmother's funeral.
The man who had been seven years old, watching his father, learning the only language of power he would ever know.
I thought about Carol Brooks, alone in whatever house she lived in now, carrying thirty years of silence.
I thought about Madison, sitting across from my father's legal team, telling the truth because she had finally run out of reasons not to.
I thought about the floor I had chosen myself, with the stain on it now, in the house I would never go back to.
And then I stopped thinking about all of it.
I picked up my phone and called my father.
May you like
"I'm ready to come home," I said.
"The plane is already waiting," he said.
