Chapter 16 - THE MAN WHO CAME BACK FOR THE WRONG REASONCaleb arrived Saturday exactly on time.
Maris noticed because manipulation could apparently improve punctuality.
He brought a stuffed elephant for Eden.
She ignored it and reached for a plastic cup.
Caleb looked disappointed.
Maris did not rescue him.
Parenthood involved surviving rejection by toddlers.
They spent two hours at a supervised family space.
Maris did not require supervision legally.
She required consistency emotionally.
Caleb resented it.
But accepted.
Afterward he asked:
“Can we talk?”
“We are talking.”
“Alone.”
“No.”
“Maris.”
“Say what you need.”
He looked around.
“I didn’t give Genevieve the article.”
“You gave her material.”
“I told her things.”
“Private things.”
“Some.”
“Why?”
“Because she said Rothwell could help with my company.”
There it was.
Money.
Again.
Maris laughed.
“You sold my life for a possible investment.”
“I didn’t sell anything.”
“What did you get?”
“Nothing yet.”
“That’s worse.”
Caleb’s face tightened.
“I’m drowning.”
“You think I wasn’t?”
“You had a billionaire father.”
“I didn’t use him.”
“That was your choice.”
“Yes.”
“You could always call.”
“That was never simple.”
“To you.”
His resentment surfaced.
“You liked pretending you were ordinary.”
Maris stared.
“Is that what you think?”
“You always had a safety net.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“I had a man who might save me only if I was willing to become his daughter on his terms.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“No.”
“It’s honest.”
Caleb shook his head.
“You don’t know what it is like to have nothing.”
Maris’s eyes hardened.
“And you don’t know what it is like to have people wonder if loving you is an investment.”
Caleb looked away.
Maris continued:
“I loved you because I thought you didn’t care who my father was.”
“I didn’t at first.”
That admission hurt more than denial.
“At first.”
He closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded.
“I believe you.”
Caleb looked surprised.
“Forgiveness is different.”
He understood.
Before leaving, he asked:
“Is August changing the will?”
Maris stared.
Then laughed.
“You made it almost three hours.”
He looked ashamed.
“Goodbye, Caleb.”
Later Genevieve called him.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing useful.”
“She knows?”
“Yes.”
“About us?”
“She knows enough.”
Genevieve’s voice hardened.
“Then we need proof.”
“Of what?”
“That she came back for money.”
Caleb almost laughed.
“She didn’t.”
Silence.
“You’re supposed to help me.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Truth is flexible.”
Caleb stared at the phone.
Something in him shifted.
He had already lied.
Already traded pieces of Maris’s life.
But Genevieve’s sentence made the ugliness visible.
Truth is flexible.
He had said versions of that to himself for years.
Maybe he could still choose differently.
Not nobly.
Not completely.
But differently.
“Genevieve.”
“What?”
“I’m done.”
She laughed.
“No, you’re not.”
He hung up.
Genevieve stared at her phone.
Then opened the folder Caleb had already sent.
Bank statements.
Old photographs.
Screenshots.
Pieces.
May you like
Enough, she thought, to build another story.
She did not yet know Caleb had kept copies of their conversations too.
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