Chapter 316: The File

The second one was just the second one.

He hasn’t been weird, he typed. And I like it. Properly.

Good, she said. Both of those things. I told him not to be weird but he doesn’t always listen. A pause. What kind of coffee.

Black, he said. The stronger the better.

That’s very on brand for you, she said. Everything I’ve read about you suggests someone who drinks very strong black coffee.

What did you read, he said.

The Okonkwo piece, she said.

He looked at that. She meant Sarah Coleman’s piece. The Vertex piece.

It’s Coleman, he said. Sarah Coleman.

The article had Okonkwo, she said.

Outdated version, he said.

Oh. Okay. A pause. It was a good article either way. She wrote about you like someone trying to figure out what you actually are rather than just what you look like on paper. I appreciated that.

She’s good at her job, he said.

So are you apparently, said Sophie. The article made that clear. Dad doesn’t know I read it. He’d say I was being invasive. A pause. Was I being invasive.

You were being thorough, he said.

That’s a diplomatic answer.

It’s an accurate one, he said.

Okay. That’s two questions answered. I’m holding the other nine. A pause. For now.

He put his phone down.

He thought about the file.

He thought about the Walsh section and James Walsh and sixty-one percent of a pension disappearing when his daughter was twelve.

He thought about what he was going to do with the information.

Then he opened his laptop and called Max.

Max picked up on the second ring. Background sounds. His apartment. Something that might have been Amara’s voice in another room asking something and then not being in the other room.

"You read it," said Max. Not a question.

"Yes," said Sean.

"The Walsh section," said Max.

"Yes," said Sean.

A pause. "Sean," said Max.

"I’m okay," said Sean. "I just needed to know what it actually was before I decided anything."

"And now you know," said Max.

"Now I know," said Sean.

Max was quiet for a moment. Sean heard the sound of him moving somewhere quieter in the apartment. "What are you going to do."

"I don’t know yet," said Sean. "I needed the file first."

"You have more of the file to read," said Max. "The outline is forty-eight hours. The full picture is three days."

"I know," said Sean. "Eleanor said we’d discuss the full version after the outline."

"Are you going to," said Max.

Sean thought about what the outline had already told him. The specific information about James Walsh’s pension. The legal strategy that had made it possible. Henry Miller’s name on the decision.

He thought about Richard Miller at twenty-four.

He thought about what it meant to make a choice under pressure from a man like Henry.

"Yes," said Sean. "Tell Eleanor I want the full picture."

"She’ll want the retainer extension," said Max.

"Send me her number," said Sean. "I’ll call her directly."

"Already sending," said Max. Then: "Sean. What the file says about the Walsh family. About your mother’s family. That’s." He stopped.

"Yes," said Sean.

"I’m sorry," said Max.

"You didn’t do it," said Sean.

"I know," said Max. "I’m still sorry it’s what it is."

Sean looked at the closed laptop. "How’s Amara."

"She reorganized my medicine cabinet this morning," said Max. "She said the previous arrangement was pharmacologically illogical. She made a diagram."

"A diagram," said Sean.

"She has a whiteboard now," said Max. "I don’t know when she got a whiteboard. It was just there."

Sean held his phone and felt the specific warmth of an ordinary Max-and-Amara exchange landing somewhere that needed something ordinary.

"The presentation," said Sean. "How’s her preparation."

"Forty-seven slides," said Max. "She cut six. She said they were redundant. I read the six she cut and she was right." A pause. "She’s ready. She’s been ready for three days and the preparation is now just managing the gap between ready and the actual date."

"When is it," said Sean.

"Ten days," said Max. "She won’t say she’s nervous. She reorganizes things instead."

"What has she reorganized in the last week," said Sean.

"My medicine cabinet this morning," said Max. "My kitchen two weeks ago. My bookshelf. My filing system. My coffee mug arrangement three times." A pause. "I’ve started leaving things slightly wrong on purpose just so she has something to fix. It seems to help."

Sean looked at the window.

"That’s very kind of you," he said.

"Don’t tell her," said Max. "She’d be annoyed."

"I know," said Sean.

He called Eleanor Vance after he hung up with Max.

She picked up on the first ring.

"You want the full picture," she said.

"Yes," said Sean.

"Three more days from today," she said. "Standard retainer extension. Eleven thousand."

He transferred it.

[11,000 dollars spent]

[Balance: $68,756,707]

[22,000 dollars received — 2x baseline]

[New Balance: $68,778,707]

"Received," said Eleanor Vance. "I want to ask you something."

"Ask," said Sean.

"The Walsh family," she said. "James Walsh is deceased. His wife Margaret is still living. She’s seventy-six. She lives in the same neighborhood she moved to in 1991. The third move after the pension decision." A pause. "Are you going to contact her."

Sean held the phone.

He hadn’t thought about Margaret Walsh yet.

He thought about her now.

Catherine’s mother. His maternal grandmother. A woman who had held her family together through a pension loss and three moves and a husband who hadn’t made it to sixty-five and a daughter who had died at thirty-four leaving behind a son nobody in the family apparently knew about.

"I don’t know," he said honestly.

"That’s a fair answer," said Eleanor. "I’m asking because if you are, how I present the full picture matters. There are things in the Walsh section that read differently depending on whether you’re building a legal case, processing a personal history, or preparing to walk into someone’s life."

"It’s personal history," said Sean. "And possibly the last one."