Chapter 2 - ONE EMPTY PLACE
“Yes.”
Julian’s answer was so quiet Emily almost missed it.
Lily did not.
“Yes what?” she asked.
Julian stayed crouched in front of her.
His expression had changed. The hardness was still there, but beneath it was something older.
More tired.
“Your mother would have invited her.”
Lily nodded as if the matter were settled.
“Good. Then we can go.”
Julian closed his eyes for one second.
Emily nearly laughed.
She had spent the last fifteen minutes being intimidated by Julian Mercer, yet apparently the most powerful person in his life weighed fifty pounds and still needed help tying her shoes.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Emily said.
Lily turned.
“Why?”
“Because your father is right. You don’t bring strangers home.”
“You’re not a stranger anymore.”
“We met eight minutes ago.”
“Nine.”
Daniel coughed near the door.
It sounded suspiciously like he was hiding a laugh.
Julian stood.
“You don’t have to come.”
“Excellent.”
“But you may.”
Emily looked at him.
“That sounded painful.”
“It was.”
Lily grabbed Emily’s hand.
“Come see Grandma.”
Emily stared down at the mitten wrapped around her fingers.
She should have said no.
Instead she thought about her apartment.
One bedroom.
One lamp she had forgotten to replace.
Half a cheesecake.
And silence.
“One hour,” she said.
Lily beamed.
Julian pointed toward the door.
“One hour.”
“See?” Lily told him. “You can be reasonable.”
Daniel opened the door before Julian could answer.
The Mercer townhouse stood on East Seventy-Fourth Street behind limestone steps dusted with snow.
Emily had expected something theatrical.
Armed guards.
Marble lions.
Maybe a chandelier large enough to crush a horse.
Instead, the house was warm.
A Christmas tree filled the front parlor. Old ornaments hung beside paper angels clearly made by a child. Stockings were tied along the fireplace.
One read LILY.
Another read PAPA.
A third simply said GRANDMA.
There was no stocking for Lily’s mother.
Emily noticed.
She wished she hadn’t.
An elegant woman in her late sixties appeared from the dining room wearing a forest-green sweater and pearl earrings.
“Julian, where have you—”
She stopped when she saw Emily.
Then Lily announced, “I brought someone.”
The woman looked at Julian.
“You?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
Lily removed her hat.
“Grandma, this is Emily. She was going home to eat cheesecake alone.”
Emily winced.
“I’m beginning to regret telling you anything.”
The woman smiled.
“Rosa Mercer.”
She extended her hand.
Her grip was surprisingly warm.
“Anyone Lily drags home on Christmas Eve gets fed before interrogation.”
“Mother.”
“I said before.”
Twenty minutes later, Emily sat at a table that could have accommodated fourteen people.
There were four of them.
Daniel had disappeared somewhere downstairs after declining dinner.
Lily talked enough for everyone.
She told Emily about school, her hatred of peas, the classmate who kept eating glue, and the fact that Julian did not know how to braid hair.
“I know how.”
“You make knots.”
“They remain attached to your head.”
“That’s not the same.”
Rosa covered her smile with a wineglass.
Emily laughed.
Really laughed.
She had forgotten how strange laughter felt when it surprised you.
Julian noticed.
That made her stop.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You were staring.”
“I was observing.”
“Very Mafia of you.”
Rosa choked on her wine.
Lily whispered, “Papa hates when people say Mafia.”
Julian rubbed his forehead.
“I have gathered that Christmas discipline is no longer respected in this house.”
For several minutes, Emily forgot who they were.
Then she noticed the watch.
It sat beneath the glass top of a narrow cabinet behind Julian.
A silver pocket watch.
Scratched near the crown.
Small dent along the lower edge.
Emily’s fork stopped.
The room faded.
She knew that dent.
When she was nine, she had dropped that watch onto the kitchen tile while trying to wind it.
Her father had stared at the damage.
Then at her terrified face.
And laughed.
“It survived me,” he had said. “It can survive you.”
Emily stood so suddenly her chair scraped the floor.
Julian’s eyes sharpened.
“What is it?”
She crossed the room.
Her hand trembled above the glass.
“No.”
Rosa’s face changed.
Emily looked at her.
“Where did you get this?”
Nobody answered.
“Emily?”
Julian had risen.
She pointed.
“That watch.”
He approached slowly.
“It belonged to my wife.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“That belonged to my father.”
Silence.
Rosa lowered herself into her chair.
Julian opened the cabinet.
He took out the watch.
Emily almost couldn’t touch it.
On the back were three tiny letters.
P.J.H.
Patrick Joseph Hart.
Her father.
Julian saw them.
“Your father was Patrick Hart?”
Emily laughed once.
There was nothing funny in it.
“You know the name.”
Julian’s expression answered before his mouth did.
Everyone connected to the Mercer family knew Patrick Hart.
Eighteen years earlier, Patrick had been the financial controller accused of stealing $2.4 million from Mercer Maritime.
He had pleaded guilty.
Emily’s mother had lost their house.
Their friends disappeared.
Patrick died in prison three years later after a stroke.
Emily had spent half her life carrying his shame.
And the Mercer family had displayed his watch behind glass.
“How,” Emily whispered, “did your wife get my father’s watch?”
Julian looked toward Rosa.
Rosa stared at the table.
Lily’s voice came softly.
“Papa?”
Julian turned the watch over.
For the first time since Emily had met him, fear entered his face.
“My wife had this with her when she died.”
Emily’s breath stopped.
May you like
Julian closed his fist around the watch.
“It was found inside Sofia’s coat the night of the crash.”
