The Check He Left

He knocked again.

Then again.

Then a third time, and by the third knock I could tell he wasn't going to leave.

I picked up Lily. I sat her in her high chair. I gave her the lunch bag, the stuffed elephant, and a juice box. I made sure she was occupied.

Then I walked to the front door and I opened it.

He was still there. Still pale. Still holding the bakery bag. He'd stopped shaking but only barely, like the shaking had moved somewhere I couldn't see.

"You have a daughter," he said.

"I have a daughter."

"She's mine."

"That's not a question."

"Vivian."

"Don't." I held up a hand. "Don't say my name like that. You lost the right to say my name like that three years ago, on a kitchen counter, in a note that fit on a Post-it."

He flinched. He actually flinched. I filed that away. Sebastian Wolfe did not flinch. Sebastian Wolfe closed multi-million-dollar deals without changing expression. The fact that my voice could make him flinch was new information.

"How old is she," he said.

"Three."

He did the math. I watched him do the math. I watched him realize she was conceived during the eleventh month of our contract, which meant I had been four months pregnant when he left, which meant I had been four months pregnant, alone, with no forwarding address, no phone number, no explanation, while I packed a bag and moved back to my grandmother's house and figured out how to be a person who could do this.

He closed his eyes.

"You were pregnant," he said. "When I left. You were pregnant with my daughter and you didn't tell me."

"That's right."

"Why."

"Because the contract said no obligations outside of public appearances. Because you didn't want a baby. Because I didn't want you to want a baby for the wrong reasons. Because I had three more months and I figured I'd figure it out."

"Figure out what."

"How to do it alone."

He opened his eyes. They were wet. Sebastian Wolfe, who I'd never seen cry, who I'd seen remain dry-eyed at his grandfather's funeral, was standing on my porch with wet eyes because of a three-year-old girl with her stuffed elephant eating apple slices in my kitchen.

"Can I come in," he said.

"No."

"Vivian—"

"No."

He didn't argue. He stood there. He looked at the door frame. He looked at the door. He looked at the window next to the door, where Lily's drawings were taped — a horse, a sun, a person holding hands with a smaller person, labeled "MOMMY AND LILY" in crayon.

"Who taught her to draw," he said.

"I did."

"She's good."

"Thank you. Is that why you're here. To critique my parenting."

"No." He reached into his coat pocket. Pulled out an envelope. The same shape as the one at my mother's funeral, except this one was thicker. He held it out to me. "This is why I'm here."

I didn't take it.

"What is it."

"It's a check."

"For how much."

"Five million dollars."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Five million dollars was the exact amount he'd paid me for the first year of our marriage. Five million dollars was the price of a stranger to marry him for a year. Five million dollars was what he thought I was worth, and now he was offering me five million dollars again, three years later, after disappearing on me while I was carrying his child.

"Five million dollars," I said. "What for."

"Marry me again."

The world went quiet. The birds stopped. The neighbor's dog stopped barking. The leaves on the maple tree across the street stopped rustling.

"You disappeared on our first anniversary," I said. "You left a note. You told me not to look for you. I raised your daughter alone. I lost my mother. I worked two jobs for two years so I could stay home with her for the third. I figured out how to be a single mother. I figured out how to not need anyone. I figured out how to be okay."

I stopped.

"And now you want to give me five million dollars to marry you again."

"Yes."

"Why."

"Because I need you."

"You don't need me. You need a wife for your grandfather's trust, and I was the last idiot who signed a contract with you, and you think I'll do it again."

"I don't need a wife for the trust. The trust dissolved two years ago." He paused. "I need you because I'm in trouble, Vivian. Real trouble. The kind of trouble I can't get out of alone. The kind of trouble that's going to take my company and possibly my life. And the only person I trust is the woman who walked away from me without asking for anything."

I stared at him.

"Marry me," he said, "and I will sign over half of everything I own. The company. The apartment. The house in Aspen. Half. Fifty percent. In your name. I'll put it in writing. I'll sign anything you want me to sign."

"And what do you get."

"You."

"You don't have me."

"I have your hand in marriage for as long as this takes. Public. Legal. On paper. So that if anything happens to me, my daughter is protected. So that the people who are coming for me have to come through you, and I'm telling you right now, no one is going to come through you."

I looked at him.

I looked at the check.

I looked at the window where Lily's drawings were taped.

"You're asking me to marry you," I said, slowly, "to protect our daughter from people who are trying to kill you, and the price you're offering is half of everything you own."

"Yes."

"And in exchange, I get to be your wife. On paper. For as long as this takes."

"Yes."

"What does 'as long as this takes' mean."

"It means until I fix this. Or until I die."

The word 'die' sat between us like a third person.

"I'm not signing anything today," I said.

"I didn't expect you to."

"I'm not signing anything tomorrow."

"I know."

"I'm going to think about it."

"That's all I ask."

I took the check.

I didn't look at it. I folded it. I put it in the pocket of my jeans.

"There's a bakery bag in your hand," I said.

He looked down at it. Like he'd forgotten he was holding it.

"Lily likes the chocolate croissants from there," I said. I didn't know why I said it. I didn't know why I told him what his daughter liked. "She doesn't like the almond ones."

He looked at the bag. He looked at me.

"Chocolate," he said.

"Chocolate."

He held out the bag.

I took it.

"You can come in for ten minutes," I said. "You can meet her. You cannot pick her up. You cannot call her your daughter. You cannot make any promises to her. You get ten minutes, and then you leave, and you don't come back to this house until I call you."

"Okay."

"And if you ever leave a note on a kitchen counter and disappear again, I will find you, and I will make you regret it, and I will take half of everything you own in court, and I will use it to fund the most expensive lawyer in the state, and you will spend the rest of your life knowing that I raised our daughter alone because you couldn't stay."

He nodded.

"Okay."

I stepped back.

I opened the door.

---

Lily looked up from her apple slices when Sebastian walked into the kitchen.

She looked at him for a long moment. She didn't smile. She didn't cry. She did what three-year-olds do when they meet a stranger: she held out her stuffed elephant.

"This is Elliefunt," she said.

Sebastian crouched down to her level. He looked at the elephant. He looked at Lily. He looked at the elephant again.

"That's a good name," he said.

"I named her. Mommy helped."

"It's a very good name."

Lily looked at him for another long moment. Then she said, with the brutal clarity of a three-year-old: "You look like me."

Sebastian made a sound. It wasn't a word. It was the sound a person makes when something they didn't know they wanted becomes the only thing they want.

"I do," he said. "I look like you."

"Are you my daddy?"

The kitchen went silent.

I didn't answer for him. I made myself not answer for him.

Sebastian looked at me. He was asking for permission with his eyes. I gave him a tiny nod.

"I might be," he said, very carefully. "Would that be okay?"

Lily thought about this with the seriousness of a Supreme Court justice.

"Yes," she said, finally. "But you have to come to my birthday. It's in two weeks. There will be cake."

"I will be at your birthday," Sebastian said.

"Promise?"

"Yes."

She held out Elliefunt.

"You can hold her," Lily said. "But only for a minute. She's shy around new people."

Sebastian took the elephant.

His hands were shaking again.

---

He left after ten minutes exactly. He hugged Lily goodbye, which I hadn't given him permission to do, but Lily had hugged him back, and there are some moments where even a contract has to bend.

I walked him to the door.

He stopped at the threshold.

"The check," he said. "Whatever you decide. The check is yours. No strings. No contract. No obligations. Just for her."

I nodded.

"And the people who are coming for me," he said. "They're going to find out about her. I need you to be ready for that."

"I'm always ready."

"You're not. Not for this. But I'll make sure you are." He looked at me. "Take the weekend. Think about it. Call me Monday."

He left.

I closed the door.

I walked back to the kitchen.

Lily was holding Elliefunt again and eating a chocolate croissant.

"Mommy," she said. "I like him."

"Yeah, baby?"

"He brought croissants."

"He did."

"Can he come back?"

I sat down at the table across from her.

"Maybe," I said. "I'm going to think about it."

"Okay." She took a bite. "I like his face."

"Yeah. I used to, too."

I pulled the folded check out of my pocket.

I looked at it.

Five million dollars.

The same number that had bought me a year of being Sebastian Wolfe's wife.

I put the check back in my pocket.

I was going to think about it.

---