Chương 5
“I was under pressure.”
“So was I.”
“I know that.”
“No, you knew it.”
I tightened my arms around Lily.
“That’s different.”
Patricia’s eyes filled.
She looked angry about that too.
“I was trying to keep my family from losing everything.”
I looked around her beautiful house.
At the hardwood floors.
At the formal dining table.
At the staircase wrapped in garland.
At the framed ski photographs and the brass light fixtures and the unopened bottle of wine Robert had set aside for dinner.
“You mean this?”
Her face hardened.
“You think a house is all we had to lose?”
“I lost my husband.”
Nobody breathed.
I had not meant to say it that way.
The sentence came out before I could stop it.
Patricia looked at me as if I had shoved her.
I hated myself for a second.
Then another part of me refused to take it back.
Robert stood.
“Our situation wasn’t comparable.”
Patricia turned on him.
“Oh, now you’re noble?”
“No.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I’m just done pretending.”
My mother began crying quietly.
Not dramatically.
She simply sat down near Grandma and covered her mouth with her hand.
I looked at her.
“What did you get?”
She flinched.
“Claire.”
“What did you get?”
“I didn’t take money.”
“Then why did you help hide it?”
“I didn’t help hide it.”
Grandma looked at her.
“Denise.”
Mom dropped her hand.
Her mascara had smudged beneath one eye.
“Patricia gave me money sometimes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
Mom stared at the floor.
“Maybe seven thousand.”
My knees weakened.
“For what?”
“Your rent that one time.”
“That was fourteen hundred.”
“And groceries.”
“You gave me two hundred dollars in grocery cards.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
“The rest was for me.”
I could not speak.
She hurried on.
“My car needed repairs.”
I looked at her.
“I was behind on my own bills.”
“Mom.”
“I was going to pay it back.”
The sentence almost made me laugh.
Everyone in that room had apparently been planning to pay me back with money I never knew they owed me.
My mother reached toward me.
I stepped away.
She stopped.
That hurt her.
I saw it.
I let it.
Richard closed his briefcase without ever having opened it.
“I think this gathering needs to end.”
Grandma looked at him.
“Not yet.”
“Yes.”
His tone was firmer now.
“You have enough information to know this is not a misunderstanding.”
He glanced around the room.
“Anything more tonight risks people saying things they should first discuss with counsel.”
Patricia gave him a cold smile.
“Finally, something useful.”
He ignored her.
Grandma looked at me.
The anger in her face softened.
“Claire, you and Lily are coming with me.”
I stiffened automatically.
“No.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
I heard my own answer and almost changed it.
Almost.
Then I looked at my mother, my aunt, Robert, the transfer document glowing on Clara’s laptop, and Lily’s hand fisted against my hoodie.
“I’m not going anywhere because someone decides for me.”
Grandma’s mouth closed.
A long second passed.
Then she nodded.
“You’re right.”
The simple acceptance disarmed me more than an argument would have.
She reached into her purse and placed a hotel key card on the table.
“I’m staying at the Brown Palace.”
“I know.”
“If you decide you want a room there tonight, Richard can arrange one.”
“I can arrange my own room.”
“Then do that.”
Her voice was gentle.
“But let me pay for it.”
I almost refused again.
The old reflex rose instantly.
Then I looked at Lily.
She needed sleep.
I needed a door I could lock.
“Tonight only.”
Grandma nodded.
“Tonight only.”
Behind us, Patricia said, “So that’s it?”
I turned.
Her face was wet now.
“You all just leave and lawyers destroy the family?”
I stared at her.
“No.”
My voice was surprisingly steady.
“The family was already being destroyed.”
I shifted Lily against me.
“We just finally found the account it was happening through.”
Grandma looked at me for a long moment, then turned toward Richard.
“Make sure Claire has your number.”
He handed me a card instead of reaching for my phone.
I appreciated that more than I wanted to.
Clara closed her laptop and slid it into her bag.
Patricia stood beside the dining table with both hands braced against the edge, as if the room had tilted and she was the only one trying to remain upright.
Nobody said goodbye.
I carried Lily through the entrance hall, stepped over the abandoned candle, and opened the front door.
The rain had turned thin and icy.
Cold air struck my face hard enough to make me gasp.
For several seconds, I stood on the porch beneath the weak yellow light and listened to the traffic moving along the wet street.
I had arrived worried that my family would notice how little money I had.
I was leaving after discovering that some of them had known exactly how little I had because they had helped make it that way.
Emily came outside without a coat.
“Claire.”
I stopped.
She hugged herself against the cold.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“I swear.”
“I know.”
Her face crumpled anyway.
“I ate dinner with you in May.”
I remembered.
She had brought tacos to my apartment and complained for twenty minutes about a professor who graded attendance like it was a moral virtue.
Lily had spit avocado onto Emily’s sweater.
Emily had laughed until she cried.
“I remember.”
“You told me you were picking up extra editing work because you were behind on utilities.”
I shifted Lily under my coat.
Emily looked toward the house.
“My tuition.”
“That wasn’t your decision.”
“It was still your money.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should give it back.”
“You don’t have eleven thousand dollars.”
“I have some savings.”
“No.”
She stared at me.
“Claire.”
“No.”
My anger had strange boundaries.
May you like
Apparently one of them was Emily.
“You do not get to destroy your own life because your parents made a decision without telling you.”
