Chapter 2 - The Morning After
Grant Mercer woke at six in the morning with a throbbing headache and a stiff neck.
He had spent the night on the chaise lounge in the corner of the master bedroom. It was an antique French piece that Evelyn had purchased in New Orleans, delicate and narrow, entirely unsuitable for a six-foot-two former college rower. Every time he turned, the carved mahogany frame dug into his ribs.
Across the room, the four-poster bed was occupied. Vanessa was sleeping heavily, her breathing thick and raspy from the muscle relaxants Paige had administered at midnight. Her hair, which she usually maintained with expensive blowouts, was tangled against the monogrammed linen pillowcase. A plastic urinal hung from the side rail of the specialized bedframe Paige had insisted on renting, its amber fluid half-full, catching the gray light filtering through the sheer drapes.
Grant sat up, rubbing his face with both hands. The room smelled of antiseptic ointment, lavender room spray, and the sour tang of sickness.
He felt a surge of irritation—not at Vanessa, who was, after all, the victim here—but at Evelyn.
*Where the hell did she go?* he thought, standing up and stretching his aching spine.
He had expected to find her downstairs in the morning, curled up on the leather sofa in the study, red-eyed and contrite. She was supposed to have realized by dawn how unreasonable she had been. She was supposed to have started the coffee, sliced the sourdough bread, and prepared the poached eggs Marian loved, offering breakfast as a quiet, humiliated peace offering.
That was how their arguments always ended. Grant would raise his voice; Marian would offer a cutting remark about Evelyn’s cold temperament; Paige would make a snide comment about Evelyn’s family; and Evelyn would withdraw into silence, emerging hours later with clean laundry and a hot meal, having absorbed the blame like a sponge.
He pulled on his cashmere robe—a Christmas gift from Evelyn two years ago—and walked down the sweeping curved staircase.
The first floor was dead quiet.
The kitchen was cold. The Sub-Zero refrigerator hummed softly, but the counters were bare. No coffee brewed in the Jura machine. No breakfast sat under silver warming domes.
"Evelyn?" he called out, his voice echoing off the limestone tiles of the foyer.
Nothing.
Marian emerged from the first-floor guest suite, wrapped in a quilted floral dressing gown that made her look like an offended dowager empress. Her hair was set in rigid rollers.
"Is the coffee made?" she demanded without greeting him.
"No," Grant said, opening the pantry door. "She isn’t down here."
Marian clicked her tongue in disgust. "The woman has no sense of duty whatsoever. A guest in the house with catastrophic injuries, and she throws a tantrum like an adolescent. I told you three years ago, Grant, you should have married that girl from Lake Forest. The Henderson girl. She understood how a household was run. Evelyn has always been... bourgeois. Emotionally stunted."
"She’ll be back by lunch," Grant muttered, pressing the button on the espresso machine himself. He spilled ground beans across the white quartz counter and didn't bother to wipe them up. "She probably checked into some boutique hotel in the Loop on her company credit card. She'll realize how much it costs, get scared, and come home."
Paige came down the stairs next, yawning loudly. She was already wearing one of Evelyn’s cashmere cardigans—an oversized charcoal gray one from a boutique in Mayfair.
"Did she leave her car keys?" Paige asked, walking straight to the key bowl on the console. "Mine is almost out of gas, and I need to run to Walgreens for Vanessa’s catheter supplies."
"Her car isn't in the garage," Grant said, peering out through the kitchen window into the courtyard. "She took the Audi."
"Selfish," Paige declared, pouring herself an espresso from Grant’s mug before he could pick it up. "She knows Vanessa needs specialized care. Honestly, Grant, if she’s going to act like this, you should just file for separation. Vanessa has more connections in the city anyway. Once she gets through her physical therapy, she can help you with the board."
Grant felt a cold prickle of anxiety at the mention of the board. He checked his Patek Philippe watch. It was seven-fifteen.
"I have to be at the office by eight-thirty," he said, setting down his cup with a sharp clatter. "Sterling called an emergency executive committee meeting yesterday afternoon. Some nonsense about institutional debt restructuring."
"Are they giving you the CEO seat?" Marian asked, her eyes brightening with that sharp, rapacious ambition that had driven Grant's father into an early grave. "Arthur Sterling is seventy-five. It’s time he stepped down."
"It's Thomas Sterling, Mom, and he’s sixty-eight," Grant corrected her, though he puffed his chest out slightly. "And yes. With the European expansion plans stalled, they need someone with operational agility. That’s what I’ve been pitching for six months."
"Then don't let your wife's theatrical display distract you," Marian commanded. "Leave five hundred dollars on the counter for groceries. I’ll hire an agency nurse to help Paige with Vanessa's sponge bath today. Evelyn can pay for it out of her salary when she crawls back tonight."
Grant hesitated. Five hundred dollars was suddenly a heavy sum. His personal checking account was overdrawn by twelve thousand dollars due to the down payment on Vanessa’s private room at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, and the corporate credit card he had been using for "client development" was perilously close to its limit.
"I’ll Venmo Paige," he lied smoothly, fastening the gold cuff links Evelyn had bought him for their anniversary. "Just... don't touch Evelyn’s jewelry box in the master closet. You know how she gets about her family things."
"Please," Paige scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Her grandmother's pearls are costume quality anyway. I looked at them months ago."
Grant didn't reply. He grabbed his briefcase, threw his wool overcoat over his arm, and headed out the front door into the biting December wind.
May you like
He didn't notice that the small brass plaque beside the doorbell, which had read *Mercer / Hart* for four years, had been removed during the night, leaving behind two clean, unblemished screw holes in the restored limestone.
***
