Chapter 4 - The Price of a Perfect Child
I told Penelope she could speak to her aunt about what she had heard. I didn't ask her to repeat it into my phone or make a statement for our case.
She was fourteen. Whatever her mother had done, she didn't owe us the burden of exposing it.
Lydia put an arm around her shoulders and asked for Leila's contact information.
Upstairs, Chloe sat on the edge of the hotel bed, holding half a sandwich she had forgotten to eat.
“I hated her for about ten minutes,” she admitted.
“Penelope?”
“When they announced the consolation awards, I thought she was probably just like her mother. Then I saw her in the hallway.”
Sophie unzipped her laptop bag. “Being wrong quickly is better than staying wrong.”
It was something Daniel said to students. Hearing it in her voice made me smile despite everything.
We practiced the technical interview until nine. The girls explained how their application stored lessons locally, synchronized progress when a connection returned, and flagged confusing questions for a volunteer tutor.
They had named it Lantern.
I had suggested the name one winter evening when a storm knocked out our electricity and they kept working by a camping light.
“People need something they can carry through a dark patch,” Chloe had said.
Now they were being accused of stealing the very thing they had built to share.
After they slept, I opened my old notebooks beside the hotel lamp.
I remembered those early months with terrible clarity. Feeding one baby while rocking the other with my foot. Taking transcription jobs after midnight. Writing grocery totals on the backs of envelopes. Walking past a pharmacy three times before admitting I couldn't afford everything on the pediatrician's list.
But the memories held more than deprivation.
Daniel's sister, Rosa, brought soup and never mentioned the dishes. Our neighbor taught me how to repair a leaking faucet. A librarian saved withdrawn math books for the girls. People without much money had built a safety net out of hours, rides, and secondhand furniture.
Adrian had not merely abandoned an unhappy wife.
He had missed a whole world of people worth knowing.
At eleven, Leila called.
“The tournament has suspended the sponsor's administrative access. An outside specialist is preserving the logs.”
“Was anything changed?”
“We don't know yet. Don't mistake a suspicious request for a proven alteration.”
Then she told me Naomi had agreed to an interview.
“There may be a larger problem involving the company's education grants. Your research question is separate, but the records could overlap.”
Before I could ask more, a knock sounded at the door.
Adrian stood in the hallway holding a department store bag.
“I brought clothes for them. For tomorrow.”
“They have clothes.”
“I didn't mean—”
“You don't know their sizes.”
His hand lowered.
For a moment, he looked older than the man in the auditorium. The perfect haircut and expensive watch no longer seemed to belong to him.
“Did you ever try to contact me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I never received anything.”
“I sent letters to your office. Two came back. One didn't. I called the receptionist. She said you weren't accepting personal calls.”
“Cordelia handled the office then.”
I looked at him until he stopped.
“Your children weren't a delivery problem, Adrian. You knew I was pregnant before you left.”
His eyes filled, and I discovered that his tears had lost their power to rearrange my judgment.
“Can I at least watch their interview?”
“No. It's closed.”
“Will you tell them I came?”
“If they ask.”
He nodded slowly, then set the bag beside his own foot instead of forcing it into my hands.
It was a small courtesy, thirteen years late.
After he left, I checked my email.
Cordelia had sent a settlement proposal directly to me despite Leila's notice.
Withdraw the girls from the competition. Sign a confidentiality agreement. Receive two hundred thousand dollars toward their education.
Attached was a draft statement claiming their application had been entered by mistake.
At the bottom, she had written one personal line.
Think carefully about what kind of mother turns down her children's future.
May you like
I forwarded it to Leila.
Then I turned off the lamp and listened to my daughters breathing in a room no amount of her money could buy.
