Hemlock Veils by Jennie Davenport

then opened her door and shoved him again, landing him in the hall. She ached to cry. She ached to change everything about her life that had brought her to this point. “Don’t drag me into your life anymore, Will.”
    She closed the door in his face and he begged through it, pounding his fists and sobbing as though his life was being taken at that very moment. She folded her arms over herself as she leaned against the door, trying to remain detached. Trying to block out the sound. Trying to breathe.
    She closed her eyes. I love you, Will .
    After an excruciating minute, his shadow passed the open window, then paused. When she moved the curtain, she found him on the sidewalk, phone to his ear.
    “Juan…I can’t. I tried to get it, but…” Willem broke, choking on a sob he tried to hide.
    He ran his hand over his perspiring head and paced, clearly not fond of what he heard on the other end.
    “No.” He grew desperate. “Just…relax. I’ll find a way, I swear. I’ll get it to you. Just give me ’till tomorrow night.” Short silence. “No, no. I won’t fuck up.” Pause. “Yeah. I know what’ll happen to me if I do.”
    One-hundred-thousand. He wouldn’t get it.
    And he wouldn’t survive. The knowledge was so palpable it took Elizabeth’s breath. And she found herself overcome with the memory of Willem at seven years old, one hand in hers and one in their father’s, laughing as they raced through Hazard Park. He laughed because Elizabeth and her father had let him win. It wasn’t long before he fell and cut his knee, and where Elizabeth would have wanted their mother at his age, Willem wanted her. He crawled into her arms, weeping. And while she bandaged his knee, he made her promise she would always be there to take care of him, even when he was a grownup. I couldn’t live without you, Bethy , he’d said.
    Even then, when her father hadn’t fallen sick yet and she was barely twelve, she’d been the only mother Willem had ever known. And just like she’d promised then, she’d promised him every year after. Always mending the wound, always making it better. Always holding to an unrealistic hope that her love for him would be enough.
    Only it wasn’t, and never had been.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    “Remember three o’clock, Elizabeth,” Mr. Vanderzee said through Elizabeth’s earpiece. Not even the phone could mask his arrogance. “Not a minute past. Mr. Fluckiger will be ready and waiting.”
    Thankfully, he couldn’t see her rolling her eyes. “Yes, Mr. Vanderzee. Three. I’ll be there.” Was it just a coincidence that this crisis with Willem happened to fall on the same day as her monthly meeting with Heritage Financial to discuss the status of Mr. Vanderzee’s accounts?
    The line clicked without a goodbye, as it usually did, and Elizabeth ripped the earpiece from her ear, burying her face in her hands in Mr. Vanderzee’s large kitchen. Spacious granite countertops, high-tech appliances, dozens of mahogany cabinets filled with every ingredient imaginable—all stocked by her of course: it was her dream kitchen, and her favorite place in Mr. Vanderzee’s mansion. He let her make it her own, in a sense, only because he had a weakness for what she could create here.
    When he’d first hired her as his housekeeper twelve years ago, she’d hardly spoken a word to him. He’d been away most of the time, but three months after hiring her, he’d fallen sick. After a week of waiting on him hand and foot, a strange and unique bond formed between them. He had a certain respect for her, one she saw even through disrespectful words. There were certain things he could never bring himself to do—certain affection a man of his status simply couldn’t show his lower-class housekeeper. But he cared about her. She saw it in the way he attempted to buy her a better life, in the way he was so protective of her—especially with her brother. Soon after that week, he’d fired his other help and deemed her his