Chương 5
“Proof that doesn’t depend on you being sick and me being angry.”
She pulled her hand away.
That hurt more than I expected.
“So you don’t believe me.”
“I believe what I saw.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
I stood, then sat again because leaving would have been cowardice.
“I believe you.”
Her shoulders remained stiff.
“But if money was taken, if signatures were forged, if accounts were used in ways I didn’t authorize, I need more than belief.”
“For what?”
I did not answer immediately.
For revenge would have been honest, but only partly.
For protection was true, but too clean.
“For whatever comes next.”
Phedra stared at me for a long time.
Then she said, “Don’t become like them just because you’re better at planning.”
The sentence landed hard.
I nodded.
“All right.”
“That wasn’t permission.”
“I know.”
The next morning, after doctors scheduled imaging and a social worker began helping us reconstruct Phedra’s interrupted treatment history, I drove to Godfrey’s shop.
The sign outside read GDF PREMIER AUTO in silver letters.
Three service bays stood open.
Two mechanics worked under raised vehicles, and a young receptionist was arguing with a printer behind the front desk.
Godfrey came out of a glass office wearing a polo shirt embroidered with the company logo.
He spread his arms.
“Well?”
I looked around.
“It’s bigger than I expected.”
His smile returned.
“You haven’t seen upstairs.”
He gave me the tour with the pride of a man showing off a house he had built himself.
Office.
Parts room.
Customer lounge.
Storage.
A small upstairs space he called the executive suite even though it contained a desk, a couch, and a refrigerator full of energy drinks.
He talked about expansion, fleet contracts, a second location, equipment he wanted to buy.
I listened.
Then he opened a folder on his desk.
“I put together numbers for you.”
That was faster than I expected.
I sat across from him.
The first page showed impressive revenue.
The second showed expenses.
The third showed projections that would have made a banker either laugh or call security.
“You prepared this overnight?”
“I already had most of it.”
“Convenient.”
He smiled.
“I told you, I run a real business.”
I turned another page.
At the bottom was a proposal.
My name appeared beside an investment amount of four hundred thousand dollars.
I looked up.
Godfrey leaned back.
“No pressure.”
“Of course.”
“I’m just saying, if you want your money working for you instead of sitting around, this is where family helps family.”
I looked again at the number.
Four hundred thousand.
Less than twenty-four hours after hearing about my settlement, my brother had already decided how much of it belonged to him.
I closed the folder.
“Where are the old records?”
His smile weakened.
“What old records?”
“The money I already invested.”
“You didn’t invest in the shop.”
“Then whose money opened it?”
For the first time since I arrived, Godfrey did not have an answer ready.
Godfrey looked past me toward the window as if the answer might be parked outside.
“I told you, Mom helped me.”
“With what money?”
“She had savings.”
I waited.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“She had money coming in.”
“From me.”
“That was household money.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
I opened the folder again.
“How much did the shop cost to open?”
He shrugged.
“Depends what you count.”
“Count everything.”
“Lease deposit, lifts, tools, permits, inventory, signage.”
“How much?”
“Maybe one-fifty.”
“Maybe?”
“I don’t memorize every invoice.”
“You prepared a four-hundred-thousand-dollar investment proposal overnight, but you don’t know what your own business cost?”
His jaw tightened.
One of the mechanics walked past the glass office carrying a tire, saw our faces, and suddenly became fascinated by the opposite wall.
Godfrey lowered his voice.
“You came here pretending you wanted to invest.”
“I do want to understand the business.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
He stood and went to the mini-fridge.
“You want something?”
“No.”
He opened an energy drink for himself.
The tab snapped loudly.
“You’ve always done this.”
“Done what?”
“Come in like you’re the responsible one.”
I almost smiled.
“I haven’t come in for four years.”
“That’s exactly my point.”
He leaned against the counter.
“You left, Damian.”
“I went to work.”
“You left.”
The repetition carried more than accusation.
There was an old injury inside it.
I closed the folder.
“All right.”
He seemed surprised.
“All right what?”
“I left.”
“You don’t get to send money and think that means you were here.”
“I never said it did.”
“Mom got sick twice while you were gone.”
That caught me.
“What?”
“Nothing major, but you didn’t know.”
“No.”
“Because I handled it.”
He drank from the can.
“The roof leaked, the plumbing backed up, taxes went up, the old car died, Phedra started getting sick, Mom was freaking out, and every time something happened, everybody called me.”
His voice had lost some of its aggression.
For the first time, I could see the shape of the story he told himself.
I had been the brother who escaped.
He had been the brother who stayed.
Money had become the tax I owed for absence.
“You could have told me.”
“And then what?”
“I would have helped.”
“You were already helping.”
He laughed without humor.
“That was the problem.”
I frowned.
He set the can down.
“Every month, money showed up, and Mom started acting like nothing could ever really go wrong.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if you were here.”
I let him continue.
“She’d say we could fix this, replace that, help with the other thing, because Damian was sending more next month.”
“And you disagreed?”
“At first.”
The answer came too quickly to be a complete lie.
“Then?”
He looked around the office.
“Then I got tired of being the only idiot saying no.”
There was enough truth in that sentence to make me uncomfortable.
May you like
I had expected greed.
Greed was easy.
