Then he stood up, and turned around, and threw the envelope down onto the brown paper among the crabs.
It landed hard. It slid through a smear of butter and Old Bay and came to a stop against a pile of shells, and the flap came open, and the two stacks of documents fanned out across the table under the hydrangeas, white paper with yellow tabs sticking out of them like little flags.
"Grant." Celeste laughed, a small high laugh. "What is this? Renée has the papers. She brought them, they're in her folder, we were going to do it after—"
"I know what Renée brought," he said. "Renée brought papers for me to sign tonight. Enrollment agreement for Cedar Hollow Ascent. Delegation of parental authority. Transport scheduled for four in the morning on Tuesday, because it minimizes resistance." He heard someone at the table draw in a breath. "I read them. I read all of it, Celeste. I read the brochure and the emails and the nine-thousand-dollar marketing fee. I read the part where you were going to handle me."
Celeste's face had gone very still.
"So I brought some papers too." He reached down and pulled the first stack free and held it out to her. "This is a marital settlement agreement. It follows the prenup you signed, the one you thought was funny. You get what you came in with and what that document says you get. You're out of this house in thirty days. You don't speak to my daughter again, ever, for any reason." He set it down in front of her on the paper. "Or you don't sign it, and on Monday morning my lawyer files for divorce on grounds of cruelty to a minor child, and attaches a pediatrician's growth chart, and a school counselor's notes, and two hundred and fourteen pages of my daughter's handwriting about what she had for dinner while I was gone. Your choice. This is the polite version."
"You can't—" Celeste looked around the deck, at the tennis women, at Phil, at the couple with the boat, at all the faces that had suddenly become very interested in her. "Grant, you're upset, you've been on a ship all day, you don't know what you're saying, can we please talk about this inside—"
"No," he said. "We're done talking inside. Inside is where all of this happened."
And then he turned away from her, toward the woman in the linen jacket who was still sitting at the end of the table with her leather folder open and her silver pen in her hand, and who had, very quietly, begun to close the folder and reach for her bag.
He picked up the second stack and laid it in front of her, on top of her own papers, and put a pen down on it.