Semua Bab Seducing My Brother-in-Law: Bab 21 - Bab 24

Robert Chen films Arthur Mead first.He does it at Arthur’s office on Park Avenue on a Tuesday morning in November. Samuel and I are not present. Patricia told us to stay away from the early interviews so our presence does not influence how other witnesses tell their stories.Arthur calls Samuel afterward.“He asked good questions,” Arthur says. “He asked about Gerald as a person, not just as a legal subject, what he cared about. What he regretted.” A pause. “I told him about the scrambled eggs.”Samuel tells me this over dinner at my kitchen table that evening. He says it the way he says things that move him, plainly and without elaboration, letting the fact carry its own weight.“Arthur told a documentary filmmaker about the scrambled eggs,” I say.“Gerald would have hated that,” Samuel says.“Gerald would have loved that,” I say.Samuel thinks about it. “Yes,” he says. “He probably would have.”We eat.After dinner, Samuel stays. He does not announce this. He does not leave, and I

December in New York arrives the way it always does, loud and lit up and completely certain of itself.The city puts lights on everything. The streets fill with people moving faster than usual, all of them carrying things, all of them somewhere to be. The cold settles in properly. The air takes on a particular sharpness that makes the city feel more like itself, as if New York were actually designed for winter.Clinton Hill is quieter than Midtown. The lights are on the trees along the boulevard, the bodega on my corner has a wreath on the door, and the neighborhood has its own December rhythm, slower and more human than the center of the city.I walk to the studio on a Saturday morning in the first week of December.Two blocks. I have walked forty times since Samuel opened the space in October. Past the school that releases children at three fifteen every afternoon. Past the corner store where the owner knows my order and has it ready before I reach the counter. Past the building wit