Chapter 6 - The Anatomy of a Lie
Three days after the commuter plane lifted out of the Columbus clouds, April Bennett sat at a corner table in the back of an all-night diner on Route 23, six miles south of Delaware, Ohio.
The diner smelled of frying onions, burnt toast, and the sour chemical spray the waitresses used to wipe down the cracked vinyl booths between the shifts of long-haul truckers.
Across from April sat Brenda Vance.
Brenda was sixty-one, with iron-gray hair cut into a blunt bob that hit the collar of her black wool trench coat. She had spent twenty-five years as a deputy prosecutor in Franklin County before opening her private family law practice on Broad Street, and she had the eyes of a woman who had seen every possible variation of human dishonesty, cowardice, and self-delusion that could be produced by a Midwestern county with a population under two hundred thousand.
"You shouldn't be talking to me, April," Brenda said, stirring a packet of raw sugar into her black coffee with an unbent paper clip. "I represent Nora. If your brother finds out you’re sitting in a diner with his ex-wife’s attorney, your father will probably cut you out of the dealership trust before the sun comes up."
"There isn't going to be a dealership trust, Brenda," April said. Her voice was flat, dried out, like grass after a month without rain. Her eyes were rimmed with dark, red circles that no amount of foundation could hide. "Dad had a triple bypass on Wednesday morning. He’s in the ICU at Riverside with a machine breathing for him. The doctors told Mom that even if he wakes up, he won't be able to handle stressful situations again. No more corporate boards. No more sales meetings."
Brenda took a slow sip of her coffee, her expression unchanging. "And Grant?"
"Grant is living in the basement of my condo," April said, looking down at her chipped fingernails. "He couldn't go back to the Elmwood house. The listing agent called on Thursday to say the front windows had been broken by someone throwing gravel from the driveway. Probably kids from the high school who heard about the mess at the club. And Tessa... Tessa changed the locks on her townhouse on Wednesday night. She had three of her brothers move her furniture out by noon on Thursday. She told Grant through the screen door that if he came within fifty feet of her porch, she’d call the sheriff."
"Did she name the father?" Brenda asked.
April gave a short, bitter bark of laughter that caused an old trucker at the counter to turn his head.
"Marcus Vance," April said.
Brenda’s spoon stopped. Her eyebrows rose by a millimeter. "Kenneth Vance’s nephew? The one who runs the commercial tile company in Dublin?"
"The very same," April said. "Marcus was in Scottsdale with Grant. They shared a suite at the resort. Grant was out playing thirty-six holes every day with the regional brokers, and Marcus was back at the hotel bar buying margaritas for the wives and the girlfriends. Tessa was only in Arizona for three days, Brenda. Three days. That was all it took."
"Life is full of symmetrical efficiencies," Brenda murmured, tapping the rim of her mug with her fingernail.
"Mom wants to sue," April continued, her voice trembling now. "She had Arthur Sterling draw up an emergency petition for international parental abduction under the Hague Convention. She spent six hours yesterday screaming at the clerk at the federal district court because the magistrate wouldn't sign an ex parte order without a hearing."
"Sterling knows better than that," Brenda said calmly. "The Hague Convention only applies when a parent has removed a child in violation of an existing custody order. Grant signed an unconditional release of parental rights and domicile determination. Paragraph four was drafted specifically to allow Nora to relocate without notice. Grant had an attorney of record present—Sterling’s junior partner was sitting right there in Deb’s office—and they didn't object. The signature is valid. The decree is registered. As far as the United States government and the Republic of Ireland are concerned, Nora Clark is the sole legal guardian of those two girls, and she can live on the moon if she has the proper visa."
April leaned forward, her face pale in the harsh fluorescent light from the diner’s pie carousel. "Brenda, where are they?"
Brenda looked at the young woman across the table. For four seconds, the only sound was the sizzling of frozen hash browns on the flat top behind the counter.
"They are in a place where people don't ask what their surname is worth, April," Brenda said gently. "And that is all you need to know. That is all anyone in this county is ever going to know."
"Tell her..." April choked, reaching into her purse and pulling out a small, crumpled piece of paper that had been torn from a legal pad. "Tell her I’m sorry about the vasectomy. I should have guessed. Three years ago, when Grant had that 'groin pull' from the softball league and spent four days on the couch with frozen peas on his lap... I should have known. Nora was so tired, Brenda. She was up every two hours with Maddie’s colic, and Grant was lying there pretending he couldn't walk across the room to get a clean diaper."
"Nora knows who he is, April," Brenda said, sliding the scrap of paper across the formica without looking at it. "She knew before she walked into Room 204. She just needed him to say it out loud so she wouldn't feel guilty about buying the tickets."
May you like
Brenda picked up her trench coat from the back of the booth, laid a five-dollar bill beside her half-empty mug, and stood up.
"Go home, April," the older lawyer said, looking down with a mixture of pity and professional detachment. "Take care of your father if you must. But don't look for Nora. Nora isn't your sister-in-law anymore. She’s a free woman with two daughters who have already forgotten what the sound of Grant’s truck in the driveway sounds like."
