Matt’s return call caught Maura driving, in traffic on the beltline, with Jack in the back seat. She’d wanted to talk to Matt all night, but she rejected the call quickly, almost automatically. Why? Her finger was faster than her head, leaving her with a lingering question, which she felt but didn’t voice, not even silently to herself, in her head. Why not? She needed to talk to him. He would help her track down the problem with the deal. Why not answer?
She would have loved to talk the night before, after Jack was asleep; but couldn’t talk in the middle of the morning rush, getting seven-year-old Jack to school.
All night she replayed that last meeting with the due diligence team. She was in shock. Before that, she and her startup were the darlings of the season, shoe-ins for the half million dollars the SWAG angel group was getting ready to invest. What happened? Sabotage? Bad faith? Could she prove her software was really hers? Didn’t she develop it as an employee at TK? And why was she hiding her legal problems?
Would Matt know anything? He might. He knew most of the SWAG investors. He was pretty much tapped in. But he’d never let on about any worries, had never seemed concerned. And she couldn’t call him yesterday early enough to really talk. She had to pick up Jack, then dinner, and bedtime for him, and then it was too late.
But when Matt’s call call rang in over the bluetooth in the car, she didn’t realize at first that she didn’t actually want to talk to Matt; at least, not yet. She was anxious to talk about the deal problem when it first came up. But in the meantime she’d grappled with what she feared was the real problem. One she didn’t want to mention.
First thought: Problems. Bad news. There’s traffic, I’m distracted, and I’ll take it later. Too much going on. Am I afraid of bad news?
Second thought: Jack was in the back seat. Car calls were speaker calls. But he was plugged into his Kindle fire. She often took calls like that.
Realization – or was it worry: Donald. That recurring image of Donald promising revenge, the night she moved out. Standing, arms folded, filled with ice-cold resolve. Not sadness, not regret, not even anger. Empty but for desire to punish. And bone cold.
She’d spent all night stewing, avoiding voicing that worry even to herself in the middle of the night. This was angel investment, Syphon, a new startup, nothing to do with Donald. New life. And the investors loved it. Didn’t they?
Maura, going on four years now since the divorce, never ever talked about divorce or Donald to anybody but family and closest friends. She hated the thought that she’d look predictable, like the stereotypical divorced mom blaming things on her ex. That wasn’t her.
Besides, she’d told herself, repeatedly, nobody who didn’t know Donald well would believe her stories. Far fetched. A divorced woman blaming her ex. So predictable. Trite. She was better than that. She never shared stories. When asked, she was deadpan. Yes, divorced. Yes, a seven-year-old son. Single mom. Change the subject. She hated talking to outsiders about Donald. And who would believe her anyhow?
She wanted to think she was just being paranoid, which is what she told herself, as Jack fiddled with the playlist on her phone, not talking, leaving her to her thoughts. Why take it back to Donald? It was business.
She tried not to, but kept going back to the memory of Donald, three years earlier.
“You will regret this for the rest of your life,” he told her. “I will make your life miserable.”
He stood at the top of a small flight of stairs, a few steps between different levels in his (it was never really theirs, always his) trophy house. She carried a box of essentials she’d need to stay with her parents. He watched carefully, silent, arms folded, like a parent watching a disobedient child, or homeowner watching a household servant suspected of pilfering silverware. He was tall, wore glasses, had wavy brown hair over a high forehead. By then she had long forgotten his original air of the stereotype nerd, the brilliant computer geek, the successful entrepreneur. He’d taken on a new cloak, his fictional version of the stern all-powerful, all-knowing, higher being.
She knew, without question, from her bones outward, that Donald’s promise was not an empty threat; it was simple hard truth. Donald wasn’t angry, at least not the way normal people are angry. This wasn’t going to go away like it would have with nine out of 10 fathers angered by the mother splitting up with them. This was Maura blowing up Donald’s carefully constructed fiction in which he was the Internet millionaire, she the beautiful blonde, the parents of Jack, the happy couple.
So she let the call go. Not now. Not in traffic. Not with Jack in the car, she thought. I’ll collect myself first, then talk.
Sprippets 