Mistaken Alliances のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 51 - チャプター 60

He picked up on the third ring.I had not told Kade I was making this call. I had not told anyone. Some things are better done without an audience."Mr. Danvers," I said. "This is Mia Carter."A silence that lasted long enough to tell me he had not expected this."Ms. Carter," he said."I'm calling because I think we have a problem that is getting more expensive for both of us than it needs to be," I said."I'm not sure what problem you're referring to," he said. Which was, of course, entirely unconvincing but I let it pass."The media situation," I said. "The planted stories. The PR campaign your firm is running."Another pause."I don't know what you're talking about," he said."We both know that you do," I said, pleasantly. "So let me be direct with you. The employment reform conditions are permanent. That's not going to change through media pressure or through a shareholder complaint that has already been dismissed. What is going to change, if this continues, is the way your manag

Kade got sick in February.Not seriously, but enough. A flu that turned into bronchitis that kept him home for a week, which was the longest Kade Carter had been out of the office in the entire time I had known him.He was a bad patient. Not in the dramatic way. In the quiet, restless way of someone who is not accustomed to being still and does not know what to do with enforced stillness. He worked from bed for the first two days until I took his laptop and put it in the hallway."I have the board call at noon," he said."Killian is on the call," I said."Killian doesn't have the—""I sent Killian the briefing notes at eight this morning," I said. "He's prepared."Kade looked at me from the pillow."You planned this," he said."I planned for the scenario in which you would refuse to rest," I said. "Which is what you always do."He was quiet for a moment."The Danvers file," he started."Being handled by the team," I said."The Zurich quarterly—""Jonas has it," I said."You briefed Jo

The federal pilot program passed into law in July.Not the whole program. The funding for the pilot in twelve cities. But it passed. The corporate partnership model that had started with one family in Flatbush was now a matter of federal statute in twelve American cities.Dr. Okafor called me from a conference she was attending when the vote came through. I could hear noise in the background, people cheering."We did it," she said."You did it," I said. "You've been building toward this for ten years.""We did it," she said again, firmly, which was how Dr. Okafor said things she meant.I was in my office. My team was in the open floor beyond the glass partition, and I stood and knocked on the glass and everyone looked up and I told them.The response was not polished or professional. It was people standing up and making noise. Jonas, who was not given to displays, literally punched the air, which made everyone laugh.I went back to my desk and sat for a moment.Then I called Kade."It

December arrived with all the city's seasonal drama.The brownstone was decorated. Not elaborately. Kade and I had decided early that Christmas in our house would be warm rather than spectacular, and so it was. A good tree and the children's ornaments, each one chosen by them with a certainty that suggested they took the task seriously. Lights in the window. The smell of the orange and spice candle that Eloise had given me two years ago and that I bought again every November.The Foundation put on its end of year event, which I had started in the second year of the partnership. Not a gala. A gathering at the foundation's Brooklyn office, foundation clients and lawyers and community partners in the same room, sharing a meal. No speeches. No awards. Just food and the particular warmth of people who had done hard things together.Jonas baked, of course. Three different things. Someone made a comment that he should open a bakery and he said he was a lawyer, not a baker, and then looked th

Spring.The children were in full bloom. James's social world had expanded to a circle that Kade described as impressive and I described as exhausting in the best possible way. He had friends from school, friends from the park, friends from Theo's building, and a running correspondence with Rosa in Barcelona that consisted primarily of drawings exchanged through Killian and Elena's phones.Nora had two friends she described as good. She had assigned them these designations herself and applied them with precision, making clear that good was her highest category and not to be assumed lightly.The brownstone had grown into itself in the way that houses do when they are actually lived in. There were crayon marks on the hallway wall below the picture frame level that I had stopped trying to remove because they were, honestly, good crayon marks, and the frame above them was Catherine's first photograph of Rosa, and together they made more sense than apart.Eloise came for dinner every Sunda