Bleeding Heart by Liza Gyllenhaal

across his jawline. Someone far younger and more susceptible to masculine charm than me might have considered him attractive. He seemed to be trying to project a certain go-to-hell brand of sex appeal—but to me he just seemed sullen.
    “Ah, here’s my meeting,” Mackenzie said as Eleanor showed me in. He tossed his napkin on his plate and got up from the table.
    “We’re not done with this discussion,” his ex said.
    “Actually, we are,” he replied as he walked around the table and shook my hand. “I’m sorry that you had to find us in the midst of a squabble,” he went on, relieving me of my presentation case. “This is Chloe, my ex-wife, and my son, Lachlan.”
    Chloe glared at Mackenzie, ignoring my presence, but Lachlan looked over and gave me a nod.
    “And this is Alice Hyatt,” Mackenzie continued, as if the twoof them actually gave a damn. “She’s a landscape designer who’s here to present her plans for the gardens.”
    Mackenzie didn’t wait for a reply as he led me out of the room, though he couldn’t help but hear—as clearly as I did—Lachlan’s sotto voce retort: “What a fucking waste of money.”
    We walked down the hall to Mackenzie’s home office. It was octagonal, too, a pendant of the sunroom—but darker and wood-paneled, with curved casement windows facing north into the woods. A large desk with two computers dominated the space.
    “I apologize for their behavior,” he said, closing the door behind us. “I can’t tolerate outright rudeness, and they both know it. They fly up from Atlanta periodically to see which one of them can rile me up the most.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said noncommittally. I wasn’t there for an airing of his family’s dirty laundry, and I found the subject distasteful.
    “She’s a bloodsucker,” he went on, walking over to the window with its tranquil prospect of birches and evergreens. “That’s all either of them want from me: money, money, money!”
    I didn’t say anything, but I was hoping he was beginning to get the venom out of his system. I didn’t want his ugly mood infecting my presentation.
    “They know I’m planning to cut them off entirely as soon as he turns twenty-one. It’s the best thing that could happen to him, as far as I’m concerned. He’s got to learn to stand on his own two feet. She’s just using him to get whatever she can out of me—and then she takes a cut. It’s disgusting . . . ,” he said, turning around as my silence continued. “And you’ve obviously heard enough out of me on the subject.”
    “I’ve a lot to show you,” I told him, avoiding a more honestanswer. “I can give you a virtual tour on my laptop, and I also have printouts of the plans that we can go over, if you have time.”
    “There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing, believe me. But let’s see if we can’t get your presentation up on one of these hi-res screens,” he said, walking over to his desk and sitting down. He pulled another chair next to his and waved me over. “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got.”

    “There’s always a lot of water running below the surface of these hills,” I told him. Mackenzie had stopped me with so many questions that it had taken me more than an hour to get through the whole presentation, but we were nearing the end now. “What we discovered here, though, is pretty exciting. You see this double dotted line—east of the limestone outcropping? It represents what is basically an underground creek. I hope to redirect its course and have it come to the surface here”—I pointed to my largest terraced area, the one with the widest view of the valley—“and channel it across the garden in a low trough until it cascades over the edge in a waterfall to the pool we’re going to create below.”
    “How far is the drop?” he asked. It was typical of his questions. He wanted facts and figures and seemed impatient if I didn’t have them at my fingertips. Luckily, the ten-day delay had