“Do you think some of this sudden doubt might have to do with the whole—” I waved my free hand in limp circles, “—with the foundation? Maybe it’s bringing up some not-nice memories?”
I was right, and he knew it. I saw his internal war in his eyes. He didn’t want to admit that his rape wasn’t a subject his emotions had put entirely to bed. Neil didn’t like it when things were out of his control, when so much control had been taken from him that night. He’d given his trust over to a man he’d loved, and that man had betrayed him in the most devastating way possible.
Finally, Neil nodded and said, “Being in the public eye with this foundation seems to have brought up a lot of unresolved issues. Which I should have expected, I suppose.”
“You put off dealing with what happened to you for, like, thirty years. That’s a long time. It’s not like you’re going to be magically healed, all of a sudden.” I sat up and forced myself not to wince at the pain that even our super soft bed caused. “I can’t fix any of that for you. But I promise, I will never just go along with what we do because I think you want me to.”
“Thank you for that reassurance,” he said, looking down at our still-joined hands. Left and left, our wedding rings close together.
“Besides, since when have I ever done anything I didn’t want to do?” I asked with a laugh, and that got a smile out of him, finally. The silence that fell in the next moment was warm, not tense. It was as if all he’d really needed was to hear what he already knew.
“I’m really proud of you,” I said. “The work you’ve been doing with Doctor Harris. You’ve made so much progress.”
“I’m glad you can see it. I certainly can’t,” he said with a self-effacing scoff.
I leaned forward and put my arms around him. “I’ll always see the best parts of you, eshkan min.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Sophie, elskan mín, your Icelandic is still atrocious.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Elwood Rape Crisis Resource Center had started off as a bank. The headquarters for a bank, actually. They’d used some of their sweet government bailout money on a swanky new office complex, and Neil had snapped up the old one for a price tag that had almost made me vomit.
Then I’d remembered that we would never be able spend the stupid amount of money we had, and that throwing some at a good cause wouldn’t bankrupt us.
That was the weirdest part of being wealthy, and one that I hadn’t gotten used to, even after three years of living with a billionaire. Our money seemed to be in never-ending supply. And it made me weirdly cheap. I’d gone to Target with Penny and Holli a few weeks before and spent three-hundred dollars. Sure, Holli had done the same thing, but she’d lamented it. I’d just been totally confused as to how I could walk away from a twenty-five-dollar lamp that was super cute, then come home to think it was no big deal that my husband had bought yet another car.
No car, no matter how fast or street legal it might have been, could possibly make Neil prouder than the building we stood in now, the culmination of years of anger and deeply internalized pain.
I thought of what Emir had said the night before. “I’ve never seen pain so artfully transformed.” I had, and it was right here, all seventeen floors of it.
“So, this is the atrium,” Neil said as he led Emma, Michael, and me through the building’s stunning lobby. He carried Olivia in his arms, because when she was around, she was never not in his arms. She watched her grandfather’s face intently as he pointed up, trying to get her to follow his finger. The floors over our head were open all the way to the glass ceiling, and the four lower floors had balconies that looked onto the space. Above that, smooth white walls intensified the light from overhead. Windows dotted those floors; they weren’t open, Neil had explained, because of suicide risk.
That this beautiful place had such a grim purpose made me sad, angry, and a little defeated. There were two city shelters already planning to send at-risk teens to the facility as soon as it opened, and there would be a never-ending stream of people requiring the legal, medical, and mental health services the center would provide.
“Those stairs,” Emma said, wrinkling her nose at the staircase. Neil thought it was brilliant, but I shared Emma’s opinion of the wide, round dais that segued into circular steps that grew progressively smaller on their curved journey to the second floor.
“What’s wrong with the stairs?” Michael asked, as though Emma had just compared the Mona Lisa to a three-year-old’s finger painting.
“Thank you, Michael,” Neil said, casting pointed glances at Emma and me. Olivia babbled and pointed, whatever she said in her baby language ending breathlessly as she stared. Neil kissed her cheek. “You love Afi’s beautiful staircase, don’t you?”
“I think she was pointing to the fountain,” Emma said, gesturing toward the water feature nestled in the curve of the staircase. The fountain was one of the few things Neil had kept from the building pre-remodel. It was a tall sheet of copper with patches of contrasting texture, and water burbled over the dull surface.
Even as recently as the week before, everything had smelled of paint and construction dust. The marble floors had been covered in plastic sheeting to protect them from work boots. The receptionist’s built-in desk hadn’t been fully built in yet. The exit sign over the big fire doors to the conference center had been just a tangle of capped wires hanging from the ceiling. And now, it was all…this.
“You look like you’ve never seen it before, Sophie,” Emma said, laughing.
I wrinkled my nose as I squinted up at the glass ceiling. “I’ve seen it a lot. I just can’t believe the difference.”
“Come on,” Neil said, like an eager child wanting to show us his bedroom. “Let’s start at the top and work our way down.”
Neil’s tour led us from the temporary shelter floors—there were even studio apartment-style units for people who needed to flee a situation with their children or their pets—to the medical center where survivors could get emergency and continuing care, and the call center where an existing hotline would move their operations in July. The consultants and experts Neil hired had thought of everything; security, privacy, even the needs of caregivers who might suffer from compassion fatigue.
I’d already seen everything, so I could concentrate on Neil. He was beyond proud of the facility, and he should have been. It was something the city needed. Something every city needed, unfortunately, but I wouldn’t express that to Neil. He would want to save the whole world, and he was incapable of thinking on a small scale.
“I’d like to expand, someday,” Neil said as we exited the elevator into the atrium, our exploration of the building over. “Or fund a private, off-site lab to process backlogged rape kits.”
“Daddy, how much is this costing you?” Emma asked, totally blunt, as always. I wondered if she’d seen the Forbes article.