Chapter 13 - The Pariah in the Lobby
The fifth-floor family waiting room was deserted, its floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the snow-covered courtyard of the hospital.
Julian walked in first, standing with his back to the wall, his arms crossed over his tactical vest, his expression unyielding as iron.
I walked in behind him, moving slowly, wearing a long wool cardigan over my clothes, holding a folded envelope in my right hand.
Matthias sat on the edge of a vinyl couch, his head buried in his hands.
He had not shaved in three days.
His dark designer suit was rumpled, stained with grease, and missing the top buttons of the shirt.
His eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark purple hollows of severe sleep deprivation.
When he heard the sound of my soft slippers against the linoleum, his head jerked up instantly.
"Serena!"
He scrambled to his feet, knocking a plastic water bottle off the side table, taking two desperate steps toward me.
"Stay right where you are, Matthias," Julian’s voice cut through the air like a cold blade.
Matthias froze, his hands trembling as he held them out in a pathetic gesture of surrender.
"I just want to see her, Serena," he choked out, tears instantly welling in his red-rimmed eyes.
"Just for five minutes."
"They told me she was born on Christmas morning."
"They told me she was healthy."
"I just want to hold her once."
"Just once before they take me into custody."
I stood five paces away from him, looking at the man I had shared a bed with for four years.
I looked for the brilliant, charming heir who had swept me off my feet outside the emergency room in Boston.
I looked for the confident young executive who had promised to protect me from the cruel judgment of his high-society relatives.
There was nothing left of him.
Only a hollow, broken shell of vanity and cowardice.
"You don't have a daughter, Matthias," I said, my voice completely devoid of anger, filled only with cold, absolute finality.
"Don't say that!" he cried out, falling to his knees on the hospital floor, burying his face in his hands.
"Please don't say that, Serena!"
"I made a mistake!"
"A horrific, disgusting mistake!"
"I was seduced by Fiona, I was manipulated by my father, I was weak—"
"Stop making excuses!" my voice rang out, sharp and commanding, cutting off his lamentation instantly.
"You weren't seduced, Matthias."
"You were flattered."
"You liked the way she looked at you like you were an emperor."
"You liked having a secret life where you didn't have to carry the weight of a high-risk pregnancy or the reality of adult responsibility."
"You spent one hundred and eighty thousand dollars on a diamond choker while I was sitting in triage wondering if our baby was going to survive the night."
"And even when you saw the blueprint—even when you saw that your father was willing to blow up this entire estate—you didn't call the police."
"You didn't pull the fire alarm."
"You worried about what your board of directors would think."
Matthias wept openly, his shoulders shaking with violent, ragged sobs as his forehead pressed against the linoleum tiles.
"I am going to prison, Serena," he whispered into the floor.
"The United States Attorney offered me a plea deal this morning."
"Three years in a federal work camp for corporate negligence and signing fraudulent SEC disclosure filings."
"I took it."
"I signed the plea agreement an hour ago."
"I gave up my shares, my licenses, my family trust, everything."
"When I walk out of that gate in three years, I will have nothing."
"No money, no career, no family."
"I just wanted to see my child’s face so I had a reason to survive."
I looked down at him, feeling no pleasure in his destruction, but feeling no pity either.
Pity was an indulgence reserved for victims.
Matthias was an architect of his own tragedy.
"My daughter does not exist to be your emotional crutch, Matthias," I said quietly.
"She does not exist to give you a reason to endure the consequences of your own choices."
I stepped forward and dropped the white envelope onto the floor beside his trembling hands.
"What is this?" he whispered, looking up through his tears.
"It is the finalized relinquishment of parental rights that you signed on Christmas Eve, countersigned by the family court judge two hours ago."
"Your name does not appear on Clara’s birth certificate."
"You have no legal custody, no visitation rights, and no claim to her heritage."
"If you ever approach her, if you ever attempt to contact her school, or if you ever send an intermediary within five hundred yards of our lives, Julian will execute an immediate federal restraining order."
Matthias stared at the legal envelope as if it were a gravestone.
"Clara," he whispered, tasting the syllables like poison on his tongue.
"Her name is Clara?"
"Clara Joy Vance," I answered, turning my back on him and walking toward the door.
"Vance?" he cried out, his voice cracking into a high, shrill wail.
"You stripped my family name from her?"
I stopped at the doorway, looking back over my shoulder one last time.
"Your family name represents arson, fraud, cowardice, and murder, Matthias."
"My family name represents the man who stood between my child and an explosion."
"She will grow up knowing that her mother was a nurse and her uncle was a protector."
"She will never know what it feels like to be evaluated as an acceptable collateral loss."
May you like
I walked out of the room, leaving Matthias sobbing on the floor in the custody of the federal marshals.
Julian stepped out behind me, closing the heavy wooden door, cutting off the sound of my former husband’s weeping forever.
