Your authority is documented.”
I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding.
“Emma keeps asking about her share.”
“Emma is entitled to receive what the estate assigns to her through the proper distribution process.
She is not required to funnel it through your parents.
And neither are you.”
I looked toward the guest room.
A portable crib I had bought months ago for occasional babysitting was folded against the wall.
By that evening, it would no longer be occasional.
“There’s another problem,” I said.
I told him Emma had left Lily with me.
He was silent for a moment.
“Do you believe the child is safe with you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where Emma is?”
“Not exactly.
She was going to London.
She’s messaging from an unfamiliar number.”
“Then deal with the immediate safety issue first.
Money second.
Family arguments third.
In that order.”
It was the most useful sentence anybody had said to me all day.
I ended the call and played Emma’s voice note again.
Jake isn’t answering.
The number his manager used is disconnected.
Mom said there’d be money waiting.
I think I made a mistake.
This time I called her.
She answered on the first ring.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “Is Lily okay?”
Not Where is my money?
Not Did Mom call you?
Lily.
It was a small thing, but I noticed.
“She’s fine,” I said.
“She ate.
She slept.
She has personally rejected two perfectly good diapers and tried to eat my necklace.”
Emma made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.
“Can you put me on video?”
I did.
Her face appeared from what looked like an airport seating area.
Fluorescent lights.
Plastic chairs.
A vending machine behind her.
Her mascara had been wiped off, but her eyes were swollen.
“Where are you?”
“Heathrow.”
So she had actually gone.
“Jake was supposed to meet me,” she said.
“He didn’t.
I went to the address he gave me, but the building desk said nobody by that name lives there.
His number goes straight to voicemail.
His manager’s number doesn’t work anymore.”
