Chapter 6: Suite 412
My father arrived in twenty minutes.
He had changed out of his wedding suit into a plain dark jacket, and he walked through the hotel lobby like a man who had spent forty years solving problems that other people thought were unsolvable.
He looked at my dress.
The dusty hem.
The missing veil.
"Are you all right?" he said.
"I'm steady," I said.
He put his hand briefly on my shoulder.
That was enough.
Diane had offered to wait in the bar.
I had asked her to come with us instead.
She had looked at me for a moment, then stood up without a word and followed.
Suite 412 was on the same floor as the bridal suite, at the far end of the corridor.
The door was ajar when we arrived.
Light came through the gap.
I pushed it open.
Lorraine was seated in an armchair near the window, a glass of something amber on the side table beside her.
She was still in her mother-of-the-groom dress — deep burgundy, pearls at her throat.
She looked composed and slightly bored, the way people look when they have decided the meeting is already going their way.
Owen was standing near the wall.
He saw Diane and went completely rigid.
"What is she doing here?" he said.
"She's with me," I said.
Lorraine's gaze moved to Diane slowly, the way someone looks at a piece of furniture they had thought they'd gotten rid of.
"Diane," she said.
"I heard you'd left the city."
"I came back," Diane said.
Lorraine looked at me.
"I asked you to come alone."
"I know," I said.
"I didn't."
My father closed the door behind us.
Lorraine picked up her glass, took a small sip, and set it down again.
"I think we've all had a very emotional evening," she said, "and I think if we speak calmly, we can find an arrangement that works for everyone.
Owen made some decisions that were perhaps not communicated as clearly as they should have been.
That's a marriage problem.
It's not a legal problem."
"The fraudulent line of credit is a legal problem," I said.
"That document was fully executed and notarized."
"By Sandra Pruitt," I said.
"Who kept a copy.
Who will confirm that I was told it was a title insurance form."
Something moved across Lorraine's face.
Very small.
Very fast.
"Sandra is a professional," she said carefully.
"She notarizes what she's given."
"She also keeps records of what she's told," I said.
"My attorney spoke to her an hour ago."
Owen pushed off from the wall.
"Mara, listen to me.
If this goes to court, it becomes public.
Your name is on that line of credit.
You will spend two years in litigation and come out with nothing, because we have resources you don't have and attorneys who have done this before."
"So have I," my father said.
It was the first time he had spoken since we entered the room.
His voice was very quiet.
"My daughter called me tonight from her wedding suite and asked me to contact my attorney.
I want you to understand something, Owen.
I have been chief architect for a federal aerospace contractor for nineteen years.
I have security clearances you are not permitted to know the level of.
I have attorneys on retainer who handle contracts worth more than your family has ever managed." He paused.
"Mara never told you that because she didn't think it mattered.
She thought she was marrying someone who loved her."
The room was very still.
Lorraine's composure did not break.
But her hand moved to her glass and didn't pick it up.
"That little apartment—" she started.
"Belonged to my mother," my father said.
"She d*ed in it.
I keep it because she d*ed in it.
That is the only reason." He looked at Lorraine steadily.
"You looked at it and decided we had nothing.
I'd like you to sit with that decision tonight."
Owen looked at his mother.
Lorraine looked at me.
"What do you want?" she said.
"The line of credit dissolved," I said.
"The condo title confirmed in my name with no attached claims.
A signed statement from Owen acknowledging the nature of the original transfer.
And Diane's case reopened."
Owen made a sound.
"Diane's case has nothing to do with—"
"It has everything to do with it," I said.
"It shows pattern.
My attorney already knows about Patrick.
If this goes to court, Diane's testimony goes in with mine."
Lorraine was quiet for a long moment.
Then she looked at Owen with an expression I had never seen her use on him before.
It was not warmth.
It was not strategy.
It was the look of someone deciding how much of a problem he had become.
"Leave us," she said to him.
"Mom—"
"Owen." Her voice was flat.
"Leave us."
He left.
Lorraine looked at me across the quiet room.
May you like
"You're smarter than I thought," she said.
"I know," I said.
