Maggie arrived on a Saturday with the braised chicken and a face that Lina had learned, over fourteen months of Saturdays, to read accurately.
The face said: I have something to tell you and I am deciding how.
Lina waited until Ivy was down for her nap, which was twelve forty-seven, and the apartment was quiet, and the food was on the table. Then she said: "What is it?"
Maggie set her fork down.
"There is talk," she said. "I don't have specifics. I heard it from someone adjacent to the household who heard it from someone in a professional context. It concerns your career. The suggestion is that your early success was not entirely your own."
Lina looked at her.
"That someone facilitated it," Maggie said.
A silence.
"Lucien," Lina said.
"The implication, as I understand it, involves the Cole name and its reach. Not a specific action. Just the suggestion that the doors opened for reasons that had nothing to do with the work."
