Chapter 4 - The Witness
Camille's packet contained no sweeping confession. It held seven printed emails and a letter written in the cramped script Vivian remembered from childhood. In April, a Draven Property Management administrator had asked Camille to confirm both sisters' intention to proceed with redevelopment. Camille replied that Vivian was reluctant and might need more time. The administrator answered that Matteo wanted the matter settled before summer. Camille had sent back a cheerful, reckless sentence: Then do whatever makes it easiest.
A later email included the signature page Vivian had been studying for months. Camille had responded, Looks fine, though I wasn't with Viv when she signed. The manager had asked whether Camille would confirm as witness anyway, explaining that the form was an internal file copy rather than a deed. Camille had said yes. Her letter now claimed she'd thought the approval had already been obtained and that signing the witness acknowledgment would prevent delays.
Vivian read that explanation twice. It might be partly true. It did not make it acceptable. She remembered Camille as a teenager slipping out after curfew and begging Vivian to tell their mother she'd been home all evening. Back then the consequences had been a week of grounding. This time her sister's willingness to make things convenient could have changed where other people lived.
Elena asked to keep the originals and warned Vivian that the correspondence raised questions without resolving every issue. An administrator's misconduct did not automatically establish Matteo's knowledge, nor did Camille's account absolve her. Elena suggested a documented request to preserve records and suspend activities based on the contested agreement. Vivian authorized it. She also agreed that Daniel Cho could contact the building's management company directly.
Matteo requested a conversation with Vivian after learning of the preservation notice. She declined a private meeting but agreed to a short call with both lawyers present. His voice arrived through the conference speaker and filled the room before she was ready. "Vivian, I know you're angry about Camille," he began. She interrupted him. "We are discussing the building. Stay with the building."
He paused. "My company was supposed to manage repairs, not throw people onto the street." Daniel asked who had approved the renovation schedule. Matteo answered that the property team had prepared it under standard procedures. "Did you see a document bearing Vivian's signature?" Daniel asked. "Yes," Matteo said. "Did you verify with her that she signed it?" After a silence, Matteo replied, "I thought my staff had."
"You never asked me," Vivian said. She could picture him rubbing his forehead in irritation. "I asked about the building three times. You told me I was upsetting myself." Matteo answered, "I was trying to take the burden off you." Vivian looked at Elena, who remained perfectly still. "You didn't take a burden," she said. "You took my place in a decision that belonged to me."
Matteo's attorney proposed an immediate pause to tenant outreach while the records were reviewed. Vivian accepted that as a temporary step, not a settlement. Matteo then asked about her health. Elena reminded him of their arrangement for medical updates. He said, more quietly, "I want to know if she needs anything." Vivian replied, "I need you to do what you just agreed to do."
After the call, Vivian walked with Nora along the lake. The water was gray and rough, and the wind cut through her coat. "Did he sound sorry?" Nora asked. Vivian considered. "He sounded inconvenienced by the fact that being sorry isn't enough," she said. Then she admitted what she hadn't told anyone: during the conversation, part of her had wanted him to say one unmistakably loving thing, so she could know those four years hadn't been entirely invented.
Nora said wanting reassurance was not the same as wanting to return. Vivian knew that intellectually. Emotionally, she still reached for the version of Matteo who had driven across the city with soup when she was ill in their first year. That man had been real too. The problem was that so was the man who had locked her in their bedroom while guests cheered downstairs.
A few days later, the apartment application was approved with Nora as guarantor. Vivian signed a six-month lease and paid the deposit from her own savings. The landlord gave her two keys with a chipped blue tag. Vivian turned them over in her palm for a long time. No guard escorted her through the building. No assistant asked Matteo whether the date was convenient. She could enter and leave without explaining herself.
Moving consisted of three suitcases, a folding table Nora borrowed from work, and the green blanket from her sofa. Nora insisted she keep it until the baby was born. Vivian bought a kettle and assembled a secondhand rocking chair while Nora read the instructions aloud. They laughed at the missing screw, then discovered it lodged inside the packaging. The domestic ordinariness felt indecently precious.
Camille arrived at the fabric shop the following week because Vivian had refused her calls. Mr. Bell, sensing trouble, retreated into the stockroom after offering them water. Camille looked exhausted and expensively dressed, her usual confidence frayed around the edges. "I sent you everything," she said. Vivian replied, "You sent me some things. I don't know yet whether it's everything."
Camille sat on a stool. "Matteo talked about the building as if you were both already agreed. I knew you weren't. I told myself it was harmless because we'd still own it." Vivian heard the word both and flinched. "You keep talking about what you thought," she said. "Did you ever wonder what I wanted?" Camille stared at the floor. "I wondered. I was afraid to find out."
The admission was neither impressive nor useless. Camille said she had spent years feeling like their mother trusted Vivian with everything important. Matteo had listened when Camille complained, praised her ideas for the building, and made her feel included. The affection had become flirtation over the summer, then an affair. Vivian let her finish because interrupting would not make those months disappear.
"Was there a moment when you knew you were hurting me?" Vivian asked. Camille's eyes filled. "Yes," she said. "More than one." Vivian had expected some elaborate excuse. The plain answer was worse. "Then don't ask me to tell you it was an accident," she replied. Camille nodded, and for a moment Vivian saw the sister she'd protected as a child. She also saw someone she could no longer trust to protect her.
Camille offered to sign an account of the document exchange for Elena. Vivian said that was necessary if her lawyer believed it useful. "Will you forgive me?" Camille asked. Vivian thought of Christmas mornings in their mother's kitchen, the sound of two girls racing downstairs. "I don't know," she answered. "And I won't make that promise to help you sleep tonight."
When Camille left, Vivian realized she had been holding herself rigidly for twenty minutes. She sat alone among rolls of fabric until Mr. Bell returned with a cup of water. He didn't pry. He asked whether she'd be interested in advising a client who was renovating a small reading room. It would be a modest job with flexible hours. Vivian said yes and asked him to send the measurements.
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That night Matteo's lawyer provided written confirmation that tenant relocation discussions were suspended. The notice included one troubling qualification: construction planning might resume after verification of authority. Vivian showed it to Elena. "They're leaving themselves a route back," she said. Elena agreed. "Then we need an agreement that addresses the actual rights, not just the next phone call."
Vivian looked around her tiny apartment: the newly assembled chair, the two keys on the table, the pale fabric samples spread beside her tea. She had learned how much ground could be taken by a person saying he was helping. Now she had to learn how to hold her ground when that person offered to give a little of it back. She told Elena she was ready for a formal meeting with Matteo, provided they discussed the marriage and the building as separate matters.
