Chương 4
Not at her.
At the arithmetic of it.
Eleven years did not sound like much when spoken quickly.
In a kitchen, it became Lily learning to read, Leo losing teeth, school plays, fevers, Halloween costumes, scraped knees, driver's permit forms waiting in a drawer upstairs, a thousand ordinary days nobody could recover.
"Why didn't you come here before?" I asked.
Rebecca nodded slowly as if she had been waiting for it.
"I did."
The room went quiet.
"When?"
"Eight years ago."
I stared at her.
"That's impossible."
"I sat in my car two houses down for forty minutes."
"Why didn't you knock?"
"Because Julian came outside."
My stomach tightened.
"He was here?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
Rebecca glanced at the kids.
"Tell us," Lily said.
"He said if I came to the door, you'd call the police."
"That's ridiculous."
"I know that now."
"You knew it then."
Rebecca flinched.
"Part of me did."
"Then why did you leave?"
Her jaw moved before she answered.
"Because I was a coward."
Nobody spoke.
It was the first clean admission anyone had made all day.
Rebecca put the fork down.
"And because I had my own history with Julian."
"What history?"
She rubbed at a pale line near her wrist that I had never noticed before.
"When we were teenagers, he was good at making two people hate each other without ever saying anything directly enough that you could hold onto it."
"That sounds convenient."
"It is."
She took the accusation without protest.
"Our father used to pit us against one another."
"Charles?"
"Yes."
I had met Julian's father only six times before he died.
He had been charming in the formal, exhausting way of men accustomed to rooms adjusting around them.
"He compared everything."
Rebecca continued.
"Grades, jobs, who called home, who made more money, who embarrassed him."
"Julian hated it."
"We all hated it."
Her expression shifted.
"He was just the one who learned how to use it."
Leo stopped eating.
"What does that mean?"
"It means your dad figured out that if two people are angry at each other, neither one checks what he told the other."
The sentence settled heavily over the table.
I thought of Christmas.
Birthdays.
Eleanor's silence.
My silence.
Julian carrying messages between us as though he were performing a favor.
"Why keep us away from vacations?"
Lily asked.
Rebecca looked at me before answering.
"I don't know."
"You keep saying that."
"Because I don't want to lie to you just because your father did."
Lily looked away.
That landed.
Rebecca folded her hands.
"But the vacations changed after Dad died."
"How?"
"Mom started using them for family meetings."
"About what?"
"Trusts."
My stomach dropped.
Rebecca saw it.
"You didn't know."
"No."
She exhaled.
"Charles left most of his estate in trusts controlled by Mom while she's alive."
"I knew there was a trust."
"Not like this."
Rebecca lowered her voice.
"There are distributions every year, but Mom also has discretion over certain family assets."
"Property?"
"Property, investments, education accounts."
Leo looked up.
"Education accounts?"
Rebecca's eyes moved to him.
"Yes."
"For us?"
"I thought so."
My mouth went dry.
"What do you mean, you thought so?"
"When Dad died, Mom created education funds for all the grandchildren."
"All?"
"All."
"Julian told me your parents only did that for Grant's children."
Rebecca stared at me.
"No."
I reached for the counter because suddenly standing felt less automatic.
"How much?"
"I don't know the current balances."
"How much was originally put in?"
Rebecca hesitated.
"Fifty thousand per grandchild."
Lily whispered something under her breath.
Leo simply stopped moving.
I felt a strange calm descend over me.
It was colder than anger.
"Where is the money?"
Rebecca shook her head.
"The accounts aren't supposed to be accessible to parents directly."
"Supposed to be?"
"Mom administers them through a financial adviser."
"Then why would Julian need to keep us away?"
"I don't know that he did."
"But you think it."
"I think family meetings happened at Hilton Head."
"And?"
"And Mom asked questions."
"What questions?"
"College plans."
Rebecca's eyes flicked toward Leo.
"Whether the kids were doing okay."
"Whether everyone needed anything."
"Julian answered for you."
My phone rang again.
This time I answered.
"Hello."
Julian spoke immediately.
"Put Rebecca on."
"No."
"Sloan."
"Why?"
"Because she doesn't understand what she's doing."
Rebecca's face tightened.
I put the call on speaker.
Julian went silent.
"You're on speaker," I said.
"Take me off."
"No."
"Sloan, this is between you and me."
"No, it isn't."
A long exhale came through the phone.
Then his voice changed.
The irritation disappeared.
When Julian wanted to sound reasonable, every word became softer.
"I understand you're upset."
Rebecca mouthed something obscene.
I ignored her.
"Why did you tell your mother I hated her?"
"I never said that."
Rebecca laughed.
Julian stopped.
"Rebecca, leave my house."
"It's not your house when you're three states away, Jules."
"Stay out of this."
"Eleven years is a little late for that."
His voice sharpened.
"Sloan, she has issues you don't know about."
Rebecca's cheeks flushed.
"Go ahead."
He said nothing.
"Tell her."
"Rebecca."
"Tell my niece and nephew why I'm unstable."
"Stop."
"No, I want to hear the latest version."
Leo's eyes moved between us.
I hated that he was hearing this.
I hated more that hiding it had helped create it.
"Julian," I said, "why are there twenty-three invitations in a locked box behind your desk?"
Silence.
Even the background noise on his end vanished.
"Julian?"
"Those are private."
"They're addressed to me."
"They were sent to our household."
"They have my name on them."
"Sloan, listen."
"No."
My own voice surprised me.
"No, you listen."
I heard myself becoming louder and forced the volume back down.
"Your mother wrote to our children."
"You intercepted the letters."
"That's not what happened."
"What happened?"
He hesitated.
That hesitation was the first honest thing he had given me.
"It was complicated."
"Try me."
May you like
"My mother was overstepping."
"By inviting her grandchildren to the beach?"
