She Rejected Him First

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

He held the phone out. Odette took it first, pressing it to her ear with both hands.

"Mum! Happy birthday, happy birthday! Did you get my gift? I wrapped it myself. I did the ribbon four times because the first three weren't right. Did it look okay when it arrived?"

A pause as she listened.

"Good. Prince did the drawing on his box himself, did you see? He said it was art but I said it looked like a bird had an argument with a pencil."

From behind her, Prince said, loudly enough to be heard, "It was abstract."

"It was messy," Odette said into the phone, then laughed at whatever Celeste said back to her. The laugh was real and easy, the kind that came without effort, and Lucian watched his daughter's face while it happened.

Then Prince took the phone, and his opening was characteristically direct.

"Did you like the box? Odette's wrong, by the way, it was intentional. Mum, when are you coming back? It's been a month. Hannah says you're coming back soon but she always says that."

Whatever Celeste said made him listen, his head tilted slightly.

"But soon means different things," he said, with the particular seriousness of someone who had thought about this before. "Does soon mean this week or does it mean next month again?"

Another pause.

"Okay," he said, but his voice had gone a little quieter. He listened for another moment, and then some of the energy went out of his posture, the performance of nonchalance collapsing into something more honest. "I miss you too. But Mum, you sound weird. Are you sick?"

Lucian's attention sharpened.

Prince listened, nodded once, then said, "Okay." He held the phone back out to his father.

Lucian took it.

"You sound strange," he said, without preamble. "And Prince is not someone who notices these things easily, so if he said something, it means it was apparent."

"I told him, I'm just tired."

"If you're unwell I can send the jet. You could finish the last of whatever paperwork is required remotely, or I can have someone—"

"Lucian." Her voice was quiet. Not sharp. Not dismissive. Just quiet, and with a weight to it that he registered without being able to categorize. "I'm not sick. Stop offering to send the jet."

"I'm offering because it's practical."

"I know why you're offering."

A beat of silence passed between them, the kind that had its own particular texture in a conversation, the kind that meant something had almost been said and hadn't been.

"I'm coming home soon," she said. "You don't need to do anything."

He looked at the window again. The light had shifted in the time they had been talking, moving further across the floor, and the room felt quieter than it had before.

"The children will be glad to have you back," he said.

"I know," she said. And then, after a pause that he could not read, "Take care of yourself, Lucian."

It was not an unusual thing to say. It was the kind of thing people said at the end of phone calls, a small social nicety, the sort of phrase that passed between people without weight.

But Celeste did not usually say it to him. She said other things. She said *I'll call again on Thursday* or *tell Hannah I want her rice when I'm back* or *make sure Prince actually sleeps, he lies about it.* She said specific things, tethered things, things that assumed a continuation.

*Take care of yourself* was the kind of thing you said when you were not assuming a continuation.

He did not say any of this.

"Safe travels," he said instead. "Let me know when you land."

"I will," she said.

The line went quiet.

Lucian set the phone down on the desk and looked at it for a moment without moving. Then he picked up his pen and returned his attention to the documents in front of him, pulling his reading glasses back down from the top of his head.

Odette was still in the doorway. She had not left.

"She sounded sad," his daughter said, in the careful way she said things when she was testing whether an observation would be welcome.

Lucian did not look up from the page.

"She's tired," he said. "The program was intensive."

Odette was quiet for a moment. Then: "Dad."

"Mm."

"Did you remember to tell her you were happy she called? Or that you were glad she was coming back?"

He paused. Looked up.

Odette looked back at him with an expression that was too measured for a ten year old. She had her mother's eyes, he had always known that, but in moments like this she had something else of Celeste's as well, something that watched and waited and understood more than it was given credit for.

"Go and have your bath," he said.

Odette held his gaze for one more second. Then she turned and walked down the hall, and he heard her telling Prince something in a low voice as they went.

Lucian set his pen down.

He looked at the phone again, sitting quiet and dark on the corner of his desk, and he sat with the particular stillness of a man replaying a conversation and finding, in the spaces between words, something he had not noticed while it was happening.

Then he picked up the pen and went back to work.