Chương 2
“You could have called me.”
“I was told not to.”
“By Patricia?”
Grandma nodded.
“She said you were embarrassed and asked me to let the family handle the practical details.”
Patricia folded her arms.
“That was true at the time.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
She looked at me.
“You weren’t answering people.”
“My husband had just died.”
“Exactly.”
“That doesn’t mean I asked you to control my finances.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From receiving money?”
Her face flushed.
“From having Margaret swoop in and turn your tragedy into another opportunity to control everyone.”
Grandma’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
There it was, something older than my crisis.
Patricia and Grandma had been fighting versions of the same argument for decades.
I had simply become the account through which this particular version traveled.
A knock sounded at the front door.
Everybody reacted.
It was only a delivery driver carrying two bags from a grocery store.
Robert opened the door, stared at him, then seemed to remember ordering ice.
The driver looked past him at the room full of silent people.
“Bad time?”
Robert took the bags.
“You have no idea.”
The driver handed him the receipt and escaped.
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Instead, I watched Robert carry the bags into the kitchen and noticed Patricia following him with her eyes.
She seemed to be waiting for something.
Grandma noticed too.
“Where did I send the money, Patricia?”
Patricia looked back at her.
“I don’t remember the account number.”
“I didn’t ask for the account number.”
Silence settled again.
“I asked where I sent it.”
“To an account we used for Claire’s expenses.”
“We?”
Patricia’s jaw moved.
“Robert and I.”
From the kitchen came the unmistakable sound of a bag of ice hitting the floor.
Emily closed her eyes.
“Oh, God.”
Robert returned without the ice.
“That isn’t accurate.”
Patricia spun toward him.
“Don’t start.”
“You said we.”
“Because your name was on the account.”
“My name being on an account doesn’t mean I managed it.”
“You knew why it existed.”
“I knew what you told me.”
Grandma stepped between their voices before they could rise further.
“What was the account?”
Robert rubbed both hands over his face.
“A checking account at Mountain Federal.”
“And why did you have an account designated for Claire?”
“It wasn’t designated for Claire.”
Patricia said his name sharply.
He ignored her.
“It was an old household account.”
My skin went cold.
Grandma stared at him.
“You allowed me to transfer $180,000 intended for Claire and Lily into your household checking account?”
“I didn’t speak to you about any transfer.”
“But you knew afterward?”
Robert looked at me.
That was the first time he had done it since the conversation began.
“Not immediately.”
“How long?”
He swallowed.
“A few weeks.”
Patricia walked toward him.
“You need to stop talking.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re upset.”
“No, Pat, I’m tired.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
“I’ve been tired for a year.”
Patricia stopped.
Mom picked up her wine again, then seemed embarrassed by the gesture and put it back down without drinking.
I had the strange feeling that everyone except me had been living inside a story whose edges I was only now seeing.
“What happened to it?”
Robert looked at Patricia.
She stared back at him.
He answered anyway.
“Some of it went to Claire.”
I actually stepped backward.
“No, it didn’t.”
“Not directly.”
“That means it didn’t go to me.”
“We paid things.”
“What things?”
“Your rent once.”
I stared at him.
My rent had been paid once by my mother, or that was what I had been told.
I turned to Denise.
“You said that money came from you.”
Mom’s face collapsed into something small and ashamed.
“It came through me.”
“How much?”
“Fourteen hundred.”
The number made the room absurd.
One hundred eighty thousand dollars had entered their hands, and fourteen hundred had crossed into mine disguised as my mother’s generosity.
I began laughing.
I hated the sound immediately, but I couldn’t stop.
Lily startled.
Her lower lip trembled.
“Sorry, baby.”
I pressed my cheek to her hair until she settled.
Grandma waited.
“What else?”
Nobody answered.
“What else was paid for Claire?”
Patricia lifted her chin.
“Food, utilities, some medical bills.”
“Which medical bills?”
“I would have to check.”
“You will.”
The doorbell rang again.
This time an older man in a charcoal overcoat stood outside with a leather briefcase, accompanied by a woman perhaps ten years younger carrying a laptop bag.
Grandma opened the door herself.
“Richard.”
He stepped inside, took one look at the room, and removed his glasses.
“I assume Thanksgiving is going well.”
Nobody laughed except Emily, who made a strangled sound and covered it with a cough.
Grandma introduced Richard Hale as her attorney and Clara Benson as a forensic accountant who worked with his firm.
That was the moment Patricia finally lost her composure.
“You called a forensic accountant to my house?”
Clara removed her damp coat.
“Technically, Mrs. Whitmore called an attorney.”
She folded the coat over one arm.
“He called me.”
Richard gave her a tired look.
“Thank you, Clara.”
“You’re welcome.”
Grandma pointed toward the study.
“We need privacy.”
Patricia moved in front of the doorway.
“No.”
Grandma stopped.
“This is my home,” Patricia said.
“And you are not turning Thanksgiving into an interrogation.”
“It became an interrogation when my granddaughter told me she never received the money I sent her.”
“You have no right to go through our finances.”
Richard spoke for the first time since entering.
“She does not have the right to compel you to produce personal records tonight.”
Patricia looked relieved.
“Thank you.”
“But if Mrs. Whitmore’s funds were obtained or retained through material misrepresentation, there are formal ways to seek those records.”
Her relief vanished.
Richard continued.
“I would strongly recommend that nobody delete messages, move funds, alter documents, or dispose of financial records.”
May you like
Robert sat down on the bottom stair.
Patricia remained standing.
