Chương 4
Relief crossed her face.
In the bedroom, my side of the closet had become storage.
Winter blankets, old boxes, a broken fan, Godfrey’s golf clubs.
Phedra’s clothes occupied less than two feet of space.
I found one suitcase under the bed and opened it.
Inside were three folded sweaters, a pair of jeans, two photographs, and a bundle of letters held together with a rubber band.
My name was written across the top envelope.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
The first letter had been dated nine months earlier.
Damian, I don’t know if I will send this because I don’t want you to come home scared and angry.
The sentence blurred.
I wiped my eyes with the heel of my palm and kept reading.
Phedra had written about the diagnosis, the first appointment, Selina’s insistence that I already knew, and her own embarrassment about needing money.
She had written that Godfrey called treatment “pouring cash into a cracked bucket.”
She had crossed that sentence out, but not hard enough to hide it.
Another letter described moving into the storage shed after she vomited on the new living-room rug.
Another said Selina had taken her phone for three days because she tried to call me during what was supposed to be my night shift.
At the bottom, Phedra had written, Maybe I’m being unfair to them because I’m scared.
Even on paper, starving in a shed, my wife had been checking whether her suffering inconvenienced anyone.
I folded the letters exactly as I had found them.
When I left the room, Godfrey was standing near the kitchen.
He glanced at the suitcase.
“You taking her stuff?”
“Some.”
“Did you find what you needed?”
“I think so.”
His gaze rested on the suitcase for a moment.
Then he smiled.
“Tomorrow around ten?”
“The shop?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there.”
He walked me outside.
The lawn mower two houses down had stopped.
Mrs. Vickers’ curtains moved.
Godfrey shoved his hands into his pockets.
“You know Mom didn’t mean for things to get that bad.”
I opened the SUV.
“How bad did she mean for them to get?”
He stared at me.
“That’s not fair.”
“I’m asking.”
“She thought Phedra was manipulating you.”
“How?”
“With the illness.”
“Cancer was manipulating me?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I keep hearing that today, and apparently I don’t.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“She was always asking for money.”
“My money.”
“Family money.”
I looked at him.
There were moments when a lie arrived wearing the speaker’s genuine belief.
That made it harder to fight.
Godfrey did not seem to think he had stolen from me.
Somewhere along the way, my transfers had stopped being sacrifice and become a family resource he believed he deserved.
“Bring the records tomorrow.”
“And Godfrey?”
“What?”
“Don’t clean them up for me.”
His expression froze.
I gave him the faintest smile.
“I worked metal fabrication for four years, remember?”
“What does that have to do with accounting?”
“Nothing.”
I got into the SUV.
“I just hate polishing.”
He stood in the driveway as I pulled away.
Back at the hospital, Phedra was awake and eating broth from a paper cup.
A nurse had found her crackers, but she was taking tiny bites, stopping between them as if food itself required concentration.
I set the suitcase down.
“You brought half the house.”
“Most of that is mine.”
“You have terrible clothes.”
“I work in a metal shop.”
“You had terrible clothes before that.”
I sat beside her.
She smiled into the cup.
It lasted only a moment, but I held on to it.
Then I placed the letters on the blanket.
Her spoon stopped.
“Where did you find those?”
“In the suitcase.”
Her face changed.
“I didn’t send them.”
“I noticed.”
“I was going to.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She stared at the broth.
“Sometimes your mother would apologize.”
I waited.
“She’d bring me tea or sit with me when I couldn’t sleep.”
Phedra’s thumb moved along the paper cup.
“Then I’d think maybe I had made everything bigger in my head.”
I looked at the letters.
“She put you in a shed.”
“I know.”
“And you thought maybe you were exaggerating?”
Phedra’s eyes filled, but she did not cry.
“That sounds stupid when you say it.”
“It sounds like you were alone.”
She looked at me then.
I had no defense against what was in her face.
“You were alone too,” she said.
The kindness made me angry.
Not at her.
At myself.
“I had choices.”
“So did I.”
“Not the same ones.”
“No.”
A cart rattled past outside the room.
Someone down the hallway laughed loudly, then coughed.
Life continued with offensive normality.
I took Phedra’s hand.
“There’s something else.”
She watched me carefully.
“I got the settlement.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“The machine accident?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Just over a million.”
The cup shook in her hand.
I steadied it.
For several seconds she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “You can stop working there.”
That was her first thought.
Not the house.
Not treatment.
Not revenge.
Not what she could buy.
I looked down because I could not trust my face.
“I probably can.”
“Good.”
She breathed out.
“I hated that place.”
“You’ve never seen it.”
“I hated the pictures.”
I laughed once.
“So did I.”
Then I told her what I planned to do.
Not all of it, because not all of it existed yet.
Just the beginning.
I would let Selina and Godfrey believe I was considering investing the settlement with the family.
I would ask them for records.
I would listen.
I would not accuse them until I knew exactly where the money had gone.
Phedra’s expression tightened.
“You’re setting a trap.”
“I’m giving them room.”
“To do what?”
“Show me who they are when they think there’s another million dollars available.”
She looked toward the door.
“Damian, they already showed you.”
“Not everything.”
May you like
“What more do you need?”
I looked at the letters.
