“As I said,” Elijah continued, “I’m not a divorce lawyer in Arizona, but I know some really good sharks, and one of them had a killer recommendation for an attorney who was more than happy to take on your mother’s case. We spoke to her this morning. I can’t predict the future, but I know lawyers, and I would be shocked if your father ended up with even half his assets.”
“I’m filing for divorce,” Ziva announced. “And then I’m getting as far away from Phoenix fucking Arizona as a yacht will take me.”
Miriam had known, as soon as her mom stood next to her on the livestream, that there was no way Ziva was going back to her old life, but she was surprised that her mom was doing it big, rather than slinking off quietly with her savings and hoping no one noticed.
“Mom, are you sure you want to do this?” Miriam asked. “It’s going to look bad.”
“It’s going to look bad for Richard,” Ziva said. “And I can’t pretend anymore. Something broke inside me, and out flooded all the time I’ve wasted covering up for him and propping him up and losing my family, to keep up appearances. Besides, if it does get out, it will look a lot better if I’ve left in a blaze of glory.”
Ah, there it was. Her mom might be bending toward her better impulses, but she was still choosing the path that reflected the best on her. It was sort of comforting, to know not everything had changed.
Ziva immediately went to start packing, and Miriam found her trying unsuccessfully to fit one of Cass’s antique furs into a carry-on.
“Mom,” she said in exasperation, “you’re going to ruin that coat.”
“Oh, love, I don’t even need it,” Ziva said. “I just had this moment of panic where I couldn’t imagine anyone loving it as much as Cass did, and I was going to give it a good home.”
“I’ll keep it here for you, for the next time you visit,” Miriam promised. “Were you planning on saying goodbye, or was your great epiphany scene as much emotion as you could muster?”
“I resemble that remark,” her mother joked, an old Rosenstein pun for when someone saw too much of themselves in a criticism to argue with it. “I was, in fact, planning to come say goodbye. I know you don’t particularly care if I’m here or not, and rightly so, as you’re busy building a social circle and a business and a new relationship.”
Miriam started to interrupt her, but Ziva waved her off. “Still, it’s been so important to me to be here. To watch you stand up to your father and see you as the adult you’ve become. I don’t have any right to be proud of you, but I am, very much.”
Miriam rubbed her hand over her face and tried to be kind. Her mom’s tendency to make everything as melodramatic as possible pushed all her buttons, but she was obviously trying to have a genuine, emotional mothering moment, only she was not very practiced at it.
Miriam knew she wasn’t obligated to push their past under a rug out of any sense of family unity or to make her mother feel less guilty or uncomfortable. But she was starting to think that if they both looked the past unflinchingly in the eye, they might be able to cobble together some kind of relationship in the future. She wasn’t sure she wanted that yet, but she wasn’t sure she didn’t.
“Are you coming back?” she asked, finally, and then added, in case it wasn’t clear, “I’d like you to.”
“I’ll be back for the Fourth of July carnival,” her mother said. “I promise, I won’t miss it.”
“You never do miss a chance for fireworks.” Miriam smiled.
“Well,” Cole said after hauling Ziva’s various bags to the front door, “I think the party is officially over. I should probably also be going.” He materialized a rolling suitcase from seemingly nowhere. Ziva looked both annoyed that he was stealing her dramatic exit and impressed by his flair.
Then Ziva and Cole were gone. Cole rode the train back to Manhattan with her, a trip Miriam wished she had hidden camera footage of. Cole swore they talked aboutMiddlemarchthe whole way.
Their guests were gone next, leaving them with an empty inn. It was eerily quiet after all the nonstop commotion of the past few weeks, a calm before the storm of upcoming Carrigan’s All Year events. Miriam found herself wandering the hallways, feeling far too alone with her thoughts.
She should have known something was afoot when she hadn’t heard from Cole for three days. It was, in retrospect, the longest she’d gone without hearing from him since the day they’d met. She was packing up more of Cass’s belongings, systematically moving Kringle from one pile of laundry to another, when her phone buzzed itself off the bedside table. There were texts from her mom and Elijah.
Ziva The Great and Terrible:WTFFFFFFFF
Best Lawyer in New York:HACKING PEOPLE’S FINANCIALS IS ILLEGAL also wow your dad is the actual worst???
She turned to find Hannah standing in her doorway. “Did your phone just blow up?”
“Yep. What’s going on?” Hannah ushered her out into the landing, where Noelle and Mr. and Mrs. Matthews were sitting around a laptop. Noelle scooted over to make a space for Miriam and scrolled back to the top of the email they had been reading. It was from Cole’s private email account, the one he never used with anyone he hadn’t run an FBI background check on. Noelle, Miriam, Hannah, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews, Ziva, Elijah, and Mr. Rodriguez had all been cc’d.
My Carrigan’s Family
I have attached some information I found particularly interesting from Richard’s financials. As you’ll see, the rumors Mimi alluded to are true—Big Dick was using his import business to smuggle cocaine into the country for years. Most recently, he’s been close with some rather violent gentlemen who are helping him run product. He seems to have been dealing more in influence trading than actual cash, using the drugs to make very high up connections. He also seems, from his correspondence, to just kind of like hanging out with these guys.
Anyway, I knew that eventually he would come for Mimi and all of you again, and I wanted you to have what the kids these days call receipts (in this case, actual receipts). I almost leaked all of this to the media, to get back at him and ruin his life. But, it’s not mine to leak. I didn’t want to put you all in the path of that blowback. I still believe he needs to be taken down, so he doesn’t have any power ever again, but that’s not my call. Instead, I am providing copies to each person I think has a vested interest in keeping him in check, and one to Mr. Rodriguez as assurance. I trust his discretion; I hope I’m not wrong.
I have a standing job offer from a firm in New Zealand I’ve been putting off, as I couldn’t imagine being separated from Miriam for that long. But now that she’s trying to build a romance, I feel it would be timely for me to spend some time off the grid. Our lives can only be so entwined, after all. I have some recent emotional revelations of my own I need to process, and where better than the land of the hobbits?
I will probably be very difficult to reach for the next six months or so. I will send proof of life updates as possible, but I’ll be working around the clock on a confidential project. Mimi, please feel free to ignore any and all calls from my mother.