The ramen shop’s windows sweat, blurring the lake beyond into a gray watercolor. The dam pulled at dawn; the pilings outside stand exposed a rung too high, like a hem let out in a hurry. Inside, the air smells like pork bones and ozone tracked in on wet jackets. The lacquered counter reflects the neon sign like a lie it can live with.
Tamsin arrives with rain in her curls and a tote shaped like a warning. She drops it with a soft thud. “Show me page fourteen,” she says, no hello, which is its own kindness.
I slide the photocopies across the table. The paper edges catch on a damp ring and whisper. The waiter sets down water; the ice clicks like teeth.
Tamsin uncaps her red fountain pen—a small blood-bright thing—and reads in silence, lips tight, nostrils flaring when she hits the footnote. Her breath fogs her glass; a bead slides and falls, tiny metronome on wood.
“There,” she says, and drags the pen across financial reliance once. Then twice. Then a third time, the line almost tearing the page. Red pools in the fibers like a bruise arriving. “This is the kill switch.”
“Kill switch for what?” I ask, though I know. I want her to weaponize the words so I don’t have to.
“For you,” she says. “For anyone he supports, even off-books. ‘Dependent’ is not just children. It’s money as leash. Blood or adoption or guardianship—sure. But this—” she taps the red slashes—“means a roommate, a cousin, a nineteen-year-old on rent assistance, a person whose meds he covers. If a committee says it’s reliance, it’s reliance.”
The broth arrives, steam rising in soft ropes. I stir an egg through clouds and watch the yolk ribbon gold. “The committee,” I say. “Advisory. Interpretive.”
“A room full of donors and a lawyer,” she says. Her pen keeps time against the margin. “They’ll call it stewardship. They’ll say ‘optics.’ They’ll say ‘mission purity.’ And if a dependent materializes before forty, penalties trigger.”
“What penalties?” I ask, though I half memorized the summary. I need the story in her voice.
She flips to my notes and writes fast, clean. “Board control shifts,” she says. “Oversight increases. Disbursement throttles. He loses unilateral Administrator posture. Trustees gain teeth. Hale’s type loves teeth.”
“You’re sure?” I ask, and the question tastes like salt and pork fat and a dare I offer the universe.
“I’ve met this structure in other suits,” she says, wiping a drop of broth off the page with the back of her nail. “It’s old money disguised as futurism. The clause isn’t about children; it’s about control, enforced by scarcity.”
I slurp noodles to busy my mouth. They slide slick and songless. Behind Tamsin’s head, the lake glowers. The shop plays a playlist of someone else’s nostalgia; chopsticks tap, bowls clink, bodies hunch over warmth. In my pocket, the shoe key presses its cool shape against my thigh like a reminder: evidence has edges.
“Talk to me about timing,” I say.
“You don’t confront,” she says, immediate. “You collect. You define reality before anyone else narrates you into a cautionary tale.”
“So we’re doing this,” I say, and the we steadies the table.
She sets her pen down and meets my eyes. “We’re doing this.”
Micro-hook #1 takes root: If money defines reliance, what happens to love when it leaves receipts?
“Step one,” Tamsin says, and pulls a legal pad from her tote. The paper smells faintly of printer toner and soap—the ghost of law offices and their attempt at sterile. “Records request plan. Not FOIA; we’re not dealing with government yet. But shadows of it. We’ll ask for things that exist as a matter of routine.”
“Such as?”
“Foundation public filings—990s and audited financials,” she says, sketching boxes and arrows. “Board charters, especially the advisory committee’s terms of reference. Conflict-of-interest disclosures. Vendor lists for ‘wellness’ vendors. We’ll request agendas and minutes through donors who like you more than him.”
“Do any exist?” I ask, not entirely joking.
“Donors like to gossip with people who listen,” she says. “And you listen like a scientist. Next: smart-home logs. You already pulled a partial.”
“Guest-level,” I say. “Administrator refused.”
“We don’t break the house,” she says. “We out-document it. We’ll mirror every action: screenshots with timestamps, hashes, offsite copies. We keep chain of custody like a ritual.”
“I have a burner,” I say. “It’s hungry.”
“We’ll feed it,” she says. “Also: personal. Prenup copy certified. Trust §9(b) certified. I’ll pull the Cook County entry at the Annex.” She writes PROBATE COURT ANNEX—KIOSK—COPIER and underlines twice. “We’ll request any amendments, side letters, or memoranda of understanding.”
“And if they refuse?” I ask.
“Refusals make lovely exhibits,” she says, mouth tilted. “We print refusals like museum cards.”
The waiter sets down gyoza that hiss against the plate. The smell spikes sharp and savory; my stomach tightens and then obeys. Outside, a gust throws rain at the glass; the neon OPEN smears, then snaps back into legibility.
“We need safe words,” she says, as casually as if she’s asking for chili oil. “We’ll be recording some calls. We’ll be speaking obliquely in text. We need a way to say stop and later and call without starring ourselves in a discovery packet.”
I lean in. “Propose.”
“Library for stop—they respect quiet there,” she says. “Fire drill for leave now. Pomegranate for call me immediately; nobody can spell it under stress, which is why we’ll practice.”
“I can spell pomegranate under anesthesia,” I say, and she grins, relief punching a small hole in the pressure inside my chest.
“We’ll also use emoji for people,” she says, drawing little icons next to names. “Crown for Trustee Hale. Bird for the rook because I refuse to learn chess to fight a metaphor. Egg for… you tell me.”
“No egg,” I say, a little too fast. “Use a ledger. Book emoji. I’m the book until I say otherwise.”
“Book it is,” she says, and circles a tiny blue rectangle drawn in pen. “We’ll route only through channels you control. No shared drives. No family plans. Paper where possible. If you can carry a thing, carry it. If you must send, send with a hash and a notarized log. We build a museum of receipts.”
“Autonomy requires privacy; proof demands exposure,” I say, not because I’m quoting a theme but because my body knows paradox like muscle memory. “We choose when to turn on the lights.”
“Exactly,” she says. She reaches for the photocopy again and taps the penalties paragraph. “Read this aloud to me.”
I read, voice low. “Any qualifying dependent prior to the Beneficiary’s fortieth birthday shall trigger increased oversight and potential redistribution of control to the Board of Trustees at the Board’s sole discretion.” The words coat my tongue with metallic chill.
“Now translate it,” she says.
“If he supports someone, or I do, and the committee stamps it reliance, the board can take the keys,” I say. “They can shrink his power. They can slow his money.”
“Which means he will prevent qualifying dependents by any means that reads as principle,” she says. “Policy, persuasion, pressure. He will sanctify avoidance. He will draft you into the mission even if you never enlisted.”
I nod. My hands rest flat on the wood, fingerprints a faint gloss in the heat. “I saw a crib on a leash today,” I say. “Locked. For B-roll.”
“They don’t build rooms for use,” she says. “They build sets for absolution.”
Micro-hook #2 finds purchase: If they lock prop cribs, what do they lock in people?
“What do I do tonight?” I ask. “Tactically.”
“Three things,” she says, lifting a gyoza with surgical chopsticks. “One: audit your devices. Wellness bracelets, smart speakers, fertility apps. Pull exports. Note gaps. Two: paper your feelings.”
I cock an eyebrow.
“A contemporaneous log,” she says. “Dates, places, statements. Not because you’ll publish a memoir—because juries love time. Three: do not confront Julian. He is an experienced narrator. He will make your questions sound like slander and your caution sound like hysteria.”
“He smiles in aphorisms,” I say. “People clap before they hear the verb.”
“Then we take his verbs away,” she says. “We build a predicate made of documents.”
I think of the HOA listserv email in my inbox—CHILD-NEUTRAL HALLWAYS—and wonder whether a hallway can be neutral when bodies aren’t. I think of donor salons curated like exhibits, captions beneath faces like they’re marble busts—Thank you for choosing less—while the room drafts a committee to define me into a number.
“What about allies?” I ask. “Inside the foundation.”
“One at a time,” she says. “No confessions. Ask for documents. Ask curious. Never accuse. People want to be good; we give them an easy way to act like it without lighting themselves on fire.”
“I can do curious,” I say. “I do it for a living.”
“You do truth for a living,” she corrects. “Curious is just the power adapter.”
The door opens and a gust of rain sweeps soy and street into the broth smell. A family squeezes into the table behind me, stroller collapsed by the host as policy requires; a notification pings on my phone from the neighborhood app: HOA REMINDER: STROLLERS IN UNITS; THANK YOU FOR KEEPING AMENITIES CHILD-NEUTRAL. I show it to Tamsin; she laughs once, sharp enough to chip glass.
“Screenshot it,” she says. “Everything that looks stupid becomes brilliant later in a cross.”
I save the image to a folder titled brooms because sweeping is a verb and I need verbs. I add a note: cultural weather—child-neutral rhetoric normalized.
Tamsin drains her broth and sets the spoon down with ceremony. “Safe word drill,” she says. “Go.”
“Library: stop,” I say. “Fire drill: leave. Pomegranate: call now.”
“Say them like you mean them,” she says.
“Library,” I say, softer, like a palm over a mouth. “Fire drill,” louder, shoulders already thinking about doorways. “Pomegranate,” breath quicker, hands already checking for keys, for receipts, for shoes with hidden pockets.
She nods. “Good. You’ll practice alone. Your body should move when your mouth says fruit.”
I laugh then, a small, startled thing that tastes like pepper and steam. The laugh leaves my shoulders lower. The neon sign glows in our water glasses like a pulse.
She caps the red pen with a neat click. “One more rule,” she says. “You will not apologize for collecting evidence. People who want you unwritten will call it paranoia. We will call it preservation.”
“My mother taught me to keep receipts,” I say. “It’s the only inheritance we could afford.”
“Then honor her,” she says. “And honor yourself. And honor anyone the committee might one day call a variable.” She tucks the photocopies into a fresh envelope and writes L.C.—P14 on the tab in block letters. “I’ll file the certified request at the Annex. I’ll draft a letter to the foundation requesting the advisory committee charter. You”—she points her chopsticks at me like a gavel—“will export your fertility app tonight.”
The spoon in my bowl clangs against ceramic, loud in my ear. “Why?” I ask, even though I know why.
“Because I want to know whether anyone besides you has ever touched its settings,” she says. “Because wellness is control in a new coat. Because if dates are missing, I want to notarize the hole.”
My mouth goes dry in a room full of soup. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll export. I’ll log.”
“And you’ll sleep,” she says, softer. “Even for an hour. Exhaustion is discoverable.”
We pay cash. The register drawer sighs open; bills slide, soft and used. Outside, the rain has rinsed the ozone into the alleys. The lake squats low and mean, hungry for the dam to blink. The cedar of my coat ghosts up when I pull the hood tight, the closet at home traveling with me like a scent-based alibi.
On the sidewalk, Tamsin squeezes my shoulder once—brief, precise. “You’re not wife,” she says. “You’re a variable to them. To me, you’re a client and a friend. We’ll convert variable into plaintiff later if we have to.”
“We agree?” I ask. “Collect, not confront.”
“Document, not dramatize,” she says. “For now.”
Micro-hook #3 cinches: If collection is survival, what price will the next file demand?
We split at the corner. Her umbrella bobs down the block like a dark satellite. I sit in my car with the engine off and the radio pretending to load. My phone screen glows. I open the fertility app. The pastel interface blooms cheerful and smooth, a UI that wants to be a bath. Settings sit behind a small gear. I tap. Permissions bloom in a list I don’t remember granting. Calendar access: On (set by Wellness). Device admin: On (RookFit). Partner sync: Enabled. The last line tightens my grip on the glass.
I take three screenshots. I save them to PRJ_ROOK_GLOVEBOX and print their hashes in my head, a catechism that keeps my heart from jumping the rails. Outside, the lake throws a dull flash when a car’s headlights skim it. Inside, my phone hums like a small, obedient server.
I text Tamsin one word: Pomegranate.
Then I breathe in, steady and counted, and start writing tonight’s log with the red pen she left in my hand.