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Chapter 6
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2026-04-11 21:27:09Chapter 6: The Old Woman Sees
Rosalie POV
I waited until the gate closed behind us before I let my face move.
"Henry."
"Ma'am?"
"Drive slowly. I need to think."
He nodded at me in the mirror and took the long road, the one past the reservoir. Henry had driven me for thirty-one years. He knew when I wanted to talk and when I wanted silence, and he knew the difference between the two better than my late husband ever did. I took off my gloves and held my hands in my lap. They were shaking but not much.
That girl's hand on her stomach was so fast, so natural like a mother catching a child who'd run too close to the road. And then the toast, buttered to death, and the tea spilled in the saucer, and her eyes going everywhere except to mine.
I'd carried two babies of my own. I'd buried one. I knew that hand.
"Ma'am, are you all right?"
"I'm old, Henry. I'm never all right. Hand me my phone."
He passed it back over the seat. The screen was too bright, and the letters too small, and my thumb hit the wrong name twice before I found the right one.
*Damien.*
It rang and rang. His voice came on, cool and short. "Leave a message." That was it. Three words. My grandson had never wasted a word on anyone, not even a machine.
I hung up and called again. "Leave a message."
"Damien Arthur Whitmore," I said. "It is half past eight on a Friday morning. I am sitting in my car outside your house, where you are not. Your wife says you had a meeting. Your wife is a very bad liar, and I love her for trying. Call me back."
I ended the call and pressed the phone against my chest. Out the window, the reservoir went by, flat and grey. Geese on the water.
*You've already saddled me with a wife.* He'd laughed when he said that to me last night. He thought it was funny. He thought I was a foolish old woman pushing for babies because I had nothing better to do.
He didn't understand. He'd never understood. I wasn't going to live forever. My doctor, young fool that he was, had made that quite clear in September. And when I was gone, everything Arthur and I built would go to Damien. Every share. Every building. And Damien had no one. No one he let in.
If there was a child coming, that child needed protecting. Before anyone else knew. Before anyone could get their hands on it.
"Henry. I'm making one more call. You didn't hear it."
"Hear what, ma'am?"
"Good man."
I scrolled down to *V. Cross.*
Vivienne picked up on the first ring. She always did. In twenty-two years, I had never once reached her voicemail.
"Rosalie. What a surprise." Her voice was smooth as cream. "Is everything well?"
"Everything is fine. I want to talk about my will."
A tiny pause. "Of course. Is there a change?"
"Not a change. An addition." I chose the words carefully. "I want a provision. A trust, or whatever you people call it. For any future great-grandchild."
A short silence. One breath, maybe two. But Vivienne Cross never needed a breath before she spoke. She'd been cutting men in half across boardroom tables since before Damien could walk.
"A great-grandchild," she repeated.
"Any future great-grandchild. That's what I said."
"Of course, of course." Her voice went warmer. Too warm. "How wonderful. Is there news? Is Selina—"
"I said *future*, Vivienne."
"Naturally. Forgive me. It's only that it would help with the drafting if I knew the timeline. A trust for a living child is quite different from one for a hypothetical. If there's a pregnancy, there are steps we'd want to take now. Medical records, for instance. Which doctor is she seeing?"
My fingers tightened on the phone. "I didn't say she was seeing anyone."
"Of course not. I'm only thinking ahead." A soft laugh. "That's what you pay me for. And Damien, does he know about this provision? We'd normally inform the primary heir, as a courtesy—"
"No."
"No, he doesn't know? Or no, we shouldn't—"
"No, you won't inform him. This is between you and me."
"Rosalie." Vivienne was gentle now like I was a child, or a patient. "You know I have always done right by this family. if you're worried about something, it would be easier to protect you if you tell me what it is."
*Protect you.*
I looked at the phone in my hand.
In twenty-two years, Vivienne had never asked me so many questions about anything. Not when Arthur died. Not when we merged with Halbrook. Not when Damien married a girl from a hospital corridor with no money and no name. She took instructions and she carried them out, and she never once asked me why.
Why was she asking now.
"Draft the provision," I said. "Leave the name blank. I'll come in next week and sign it."
"Rosalie, if I could just—"
"Thank you, Vivienne. Goodbye."
I pressed the red button with my thumb. Or I thought I did.
I set the phone face-up on my knee and leaned back against the seat. My heart was going too fast. I'd have to tell that young fool of a doctor about it, and he'd make that face.
*Which doctor is she seeing?*
Why would a lawyer need to know that?
The geese lifted off the water all at once, beating their wings, and Henry slowed for the bend.
That was when I heard a small sound from my lap. Tinny. Far away. The screen was still lit. The little timer was still running. *00:47. 00:48.*
The call hadn't ended. I picked the phone up slowly and held it to my ear. Paper rustling. A drawer closing. The click of heels on a hard floor. Then a different sound, sharper and nearer, like a second phone being lifted off a desk.
Buttons. Six, seven, eight of them, fast. Then Vivienne's voice. Not smooth anymore but cold. A voice I had never once heard her use with me.
"It's me. Listen."
I stopped breathing.
"The old lady is asking about heirs."
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