Chapter 16 : What Madam Chen Knows
1012 Words
(OLIVIA POV)
“Do you wish to know madam”
She hadn't moved,her hands still folded. Eyes still on mine.
"Tell me," I said.
She got up first. Went to the counter. Picked up the dish cloth and cleaned water spill. Came back and sat.
Like she needed that one small moment before she could begin.
The album,the blue one. Master Nathaniel's first year. I was tidying his room the night he had fever and I found it on the shelf behind his drawing books."
"I know it."
"I sat with it for a while." She looked at me. "I went through the photographs. The dates you wrote underneath each one." A pause. "I did the counting, Madam."
I didn't say anything.
"The dates don't match." Her voice was low. "If I count back from his birth date the conception was before the contract. Before Mr. Sterling." She stopped. "Before everything."
I kept my hands flat on the table.
She hadn't told me something new. I wrote those dates. My own handwriting. In those first strange tired days when Nathaniel was brand new . I had lived with it. Carried it alone. Never said a word to anyone.
But sitting here now with someone else saying it out out after years of silence
"How long have you known?"
"I suspected the dates for some time," she said. "But I didn't understand what it meant until I found the album.”
"There's more," to tell you.
"Go on."
She looked down at her hands briefly then back up. "The day you gave birth. I was there with you. You remember."
"I remember."
"After Nathaniel came the doctor took samples. Cord blood." She pressed her hands together. "I didn't think anything of it. I've been around enough births. Doctors do it. It's normal."
"But."
"That same evening." She stopped. Started again. "I was walking past Mr. Alexander's study. The door wasn't fully closed. I could hear him on the phone."
I went very still.
"What did you hear?"
"Not the whole thing. Bits." She chose her next words carefully. "I heard him say the information is useful. Then something about samples. That they were secured. That his lawyer had them."
"What information?"
"I didn't know then." She looked at me directly. "I didn't connect what I heard to the labour room until two nights ago. Until I was sitting on Master Nathaniel's floor with that album open in my hands."
The kitchen was completely quiet.
"So Alexander arranged it," I said. "He had the doctor take those samples deliberately."
"I think so, Madam. Yes."
"And the results have been with his lawyer since that day."
"Since the day Nathaniel was born."
I looked at the window.
Six years. Alexander had been sitting on that information since the delivery room. Watching me. Watching Blake. Watching Nathaniel grow up in this house. Holding that sealed truth like something he was saving for the exact right moment.
“What could he be planning”
"Blake doesn't know," I said.
"No." She shook her head. "I don't believe he does."
"The sealed directive."
She said nothing. But she didn't have to.
"Thank you," I said. "Genuinely. Thank you."
"I should have told you earlier." Her voice was quieter now. "I'm sorry it took me this long."
"You came. That's enough."
She stood. Picked up my plate. Walked back to the counter without another word.
I sat there for a moment longer listening to the sound of water running in the sink and the birds outside and the ordinary morning sounds of a house that had been hiding extraordinary things for a long time.
Then I picked up my bag and walked out.
The engine was running but I wasn't moving.
I called Barr Thompson.
He picked up on the second ring. "Mrs. Sterling."
"Procedural question," I said. "The heir clause. Was biological verification ever formally conducted as part of the original contract compliance?"
Silence.
"I'm not able to discuss the specifics"
"Barr. Procedural question. That's all."
A longer pause this time.
"I can't discuss that, Mrs. Sterling."
"Thank you then if, you don't want to say anything to me."
I put the phone down and sat watching the gates.
His first pause was surprise. His second one told me everything his words wouldn't.
My phone rang before I pulled away.
Luciano.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey."
"How are you doing."
"I'm okay," I said.
"You sure?"
I watched a leaf come down and settle on the windscreen. "I found out something today. About Nathaniel."
He didn't say anything for a second. "Okay."
"I don't even know what to do with it yet."
"You don't have to do anything with it right now."
"I know."
"When you're ready to talk about it."
"Yeah." I let out a slow breath. "Thank you for picking up."
"Always," he said.
I sat another minute after the call ended. Then I put the car in gear and drove inside
Nathaniel was at his desk.
I pulled the chair close and sat beside him. He didn't look up. His pencil was moving across the page in these small focused strokes he always used when he was deep inside something.
I just watched him for a while.
His hands. The way his tongue pressed slightly at the corner of his mouth when he was concentrating. Dark hair. Hazel eyes tracking the page.
My eyes.
"What are you drawing boy?" I asked.
"A map." Still not looking up. "Of somewhere we haven't been yet."
"Is it far?"
He thought about it seriously the way he thought about everything. "Not if you know the way."
Blake's voice came up from downstairs.
"Olivia."
I kissed the top of Nathaniel's head before I stood. He leaned into it without breaking his line.
I went downstairs.
Blake was at the bottom stair,he had the notebook in his hand
"I found this in the bedroom. "Would you like to tell me what you've been writing?"
I came down the last step and looked straight at him.
"No," I said. "I wouldn't.”
- Writer
