Chương 9
“So no.”
“We’re okay.”
“Financially?”
“Marlo.”
“I’m not six.”
“No.”
Theo raised his hand.
“I am.”
“Thank you, Theo.”
“You’re welcome.”
I put my phone away.
“We are not doing this in the cereal aisle.”
Marlo nodded toward Denise.
“Apparently that’s where this family does everything.”
I almost corrected her again.
Instead I pushed the cart toward checkout.
At home, I opened my laptop before putting away the frozen food.
Marlo silently took over the groceries.
Theo sat on the kitchen floor with Kevin the rabbit and the marshmallow cereal box.
I logged into every bank account I had.
Checking was fine.
Current savings was fine.
Retirement accounts were untouched.
Then I remembered the old credit union account.
I had not used it in years.
It had originally been the account where I saved child-support payments for emergencies.
I dug through my password manager.
The login still worked.
The balance loaded.
One hundred fourteen dollars.
I stared at it.
That could not be right.
The last time I remembered checking, there had been nearly nine thousand.
Not recently.
Years ago.
I opened the transaction history.
Most of the activity was too old to display online.
The available records only went back twenty-four months.
There were withdrawals.
Regular ones.
Two hundred.
Three hundred.
Five hundred.
Almost always at the same branch near my parents’ neighborhood.
Some were marked teller withdrawal.
I enlarged the details.
Authorized signer.
Patricia Bennett.
My mother was still on the account.
The withdrawals continued month after month.
At first, I tried adding them in my head.
Then I opened a spreadsheet.
By the time Marlo put the milk away, I had counted four thousand six hundred dollars in two years.
I sat back.
She came around the table.
“What?”
“I need to go to the credit union tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Old account.”
“Did Grandma take money?”
I looked at my daughter.
There was no useful way to soften it.
“I think she might have.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Marlo pulled out the chair beside me.
For once she did not say anything sharp.
Theo walked over carrying Kevin.
“Is Grandma in trouble?”
I closed the laptop.
“I don’t know.”
He looked down at the rabbit.
“Does this mean we don’t go to her house anymore?”
The question hurt in a completely different place.
“For now, yes.”
“What about my red truck?”
He kept a toy fire truck at Mom and Dad’s house.
Mom had bought it for him when he was four.
He loved it because the ladder actually extended.
“We can get another one.”
“I want that one.”
“I know.”
“Can Grandpa bring it?”
I looked at the closed laptop.
“Maybe.”
Theo thought about that.
Then he sat on the floor again.
Marlo waited until he was out of earshot.
“Are you going to report her?”
“I don’t even know what happened yet.”
“You just saw the withdrawals.”
“She was authorized.”
“So?”
“So legally, that matters.”
“Morally?”
“That’s different.”
Marlo leaned back.
“You always make things complicated.”
I looked at her.
“Things are complicated.”
“No.”
Her voice stayed calm.
“People make them complicated when the simple answer hurts.”
I wanted to tell her thirteen-year-olds had the luxury of certainty.
Instead I looked toward Theo on the floor.
Maybe certainty was not what she had.
Maybe she had simply not spent forty-one years practicing excuses for people she loved.
My phone buzzed on the table.
A text from an unknown number appeared.
It was Dad.
New number.
Please don’t block this one.
I stared at the message.
Another came.
I need to show you something before your mother finds out I have it.
I read the message three times.
Marlo watched my face.
“What did Grandpa say?”
“He wants to show me something.”
“About Grandma?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
I looked at the unknown number again.
Dad had apparently bought a prepaid phone or borrowed one from somebody.
The secrecy bothered me almost as much as the message itself.
I typed, Where are you?
His answer came less than a minute later.
Not home.
That was exactly the sort of reply Dad gave when he wanted to be useful without being fully brave.
I wrote, That is not a location.
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then returned.
Library parking lot on Grant.
I checked the time.
Seven twelve.
The library closed at eight.
I looked toward Theo.
He had poured cereal into a bowl without milk and was feeding individual marshmallows to Kevin the rabbit.
“Kevin is paper,” I said.
“I know.”
“He can’t eat.”
“I know.”
“You’re still feeding him.”
“He gets sad.”
I stood.
“Shoes on.”
Marlo immediately asked, “We’re going?”
“Yes.”
“All of us?”
“Yes.”
She nodded once and did not argue.
That worried me more than if she had.
We reached the library parking lot fifteen minutes later.
Dad’s sedan was parked beneath a light near the far edge.
He sat behind the wheel with both hands visible on top of it.
For one absurd second, he looked like a man surrendering to police.
I parked two spaces away.
“Stay in the car,” I told Marlo.
She stared at me.
“That’s not happening.”
“It is.”
“What if something happens?”
“It’s Grandpa.”
“That has stopped being reassuring.”
I looked at her.
She had a point.
Still, I said, “Five minutes.”
Theo unbuckled himself.
“Can I see Grandpa?”
“No, buddy.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to talk to him first.”
“Can I wave?”
Dad had already noticed us.
He lifted one hand.
Theo waved enthusiastically.
Dad’s face folded for a second.
Then he looked down.
I got out.
The air smelled faintly of wet pavement even though it had not rained.
A teenager rolled past on a skateboard near the library entrance.
Two women were loading books into the trunk of a minivan.
Nothing about the setting matched the fear gathering in my stomach.
Dad stepped out when I approached.
He looked older than he had four days earlier.
May you like
Not dramatically.
Just tired around the mouth.
