Chương 10
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
“I need to show you something.”
She pulled out her phone.
Her fingers moved quickly across the screen.
“I got this yesterday.”
She held the phone toward me.
It was an email from a bridal travel company confirming the cancellation of a twelve-day trip to Italy.
The refund destination was listed only as the original payment method.
“Did Greg cancel it?”
“I thought the travel company made a mistake.”
“When did you ask him?”
“This morning.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was upgrading us.”
I looked at the timestamp.
The cancellation had been processed the previous afternoon.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it wasn’t your business.”
Her voice came out defensive, then collapsed.
“I’m sorry.”
I handed the phone back.
“Do you know what card paid for it?”
“Greg’s.”
“Then the refund goes to him.”
She nodded.
“He told me the trip cost almost thirty thousand.”
“Did you see the receipt?”
“No.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“I don’t see receipts for anything.”
“Why not?”
“Because Greg handles money.”
The answer was quiet.
I let the silence sit.
Samantha stared into the coffee.
Finally she said, “You’re going to say something.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“That’s worse.”
“I don’t know enough yet.”
She gave a short, unhappy laugh.
“That never stopped Dad.”
“No.”
“He would already have called Greg a thief.”
“Your father called a waiter a thief once because he charged for extra ranch dressing.”
That startled a laugh out of her.
It lasted less than a second.
Then her mouth folded and she began to cry.
Not the loud kind.
Just tears dropping straight down while she stared at her coffee.
I reached across the table.
My hand stopped halfway.
For years, this was where I fixed things.
Instead, I turned my palm upward and left it between us.
Samantha looked at it.
After a moment, she put her hand in mine.
“I didn’t mean for you not to come,” she whispered.
I said nothing.
“I mean, I did.”
Her fingers tightened.
“But I thought if I told him no, he’d say I always choose you.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t an accusation.”
She wiped her face with the back of her other hand.
“He says I run to you every time something goes wrong.”
“Sometimes you do.”
“And you always fix it.”
“Yes.”
“So maybe he’s right.”
“About that?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe.”
She looked up at me, surprised.
I squeezed her hand once.
“That does not make everything else he says true.”
Her eyes filled again.
“I told you not to come because I wanted one weekend where he couldn’t say you were controlling me.”
The sentence hurt in a cleaner way than the phone call had.
I could finally see the shape of it.
Not excuse.
Shape.
“And instead you let him control who attended.”
She looked down.
“Yes.”
Outside, Greg slammed his car door.
A second later his engine started.
Samantha turned toward the window.
“He’s leaving.”
I stood and watched the Mercedes reverse.
Ben stepped clear of the drive.
Greg accelerated harder than necessary, throwing pale dust behind him.
Samantha came to stand beside me.
Neither of us spoke until the car disappeared between the vines.
Then her phone buzzed.
She looked down.
Her face went completely still.
“What?”
She did not answer.
She handed me the phone.
It was a message from Greg.
If you stay there, don’t expect me to protect you when this comes out.
I read it twice.
“What is he talking about?”
Samantha’s voice was barely audible.
“I don’t know.”
Another message appeared before either of us moved.
Ask your mother what happens when the bank sees the real vineyard numbers.
Samantha looked at me.
I looked at the message.
And for the first time that day, the ground shifted under me in a direction Greg could not possibly have invented from nothing.
I took the phone from Samantha and read the message a third time.
“What real vineyard numbers?”
Her voice was cautious now.
I handed the phone back.
“I don’t know what he thinks he knows.”
“That isn’t the same as saying there’s nothing.”
“No.”
She watched me.
I could feel the old reflex pressing at me again, the urge to make my face reassuring before I had earned reassurance.
I did not.
“There is debt on the vineyard,” I said.
“How much?”
“About three million.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“I thought the property was paid off.”
“The farmhouse is.”
“And the vineyard?”
“We refinanced portions of the business after your father got sick.”
She sat down slowly.
I remained standing.
Thomas’s illness had lasted eighteen months.
People remembered the hospital, the chemotherapy, the hair loss, the funeral.
They did not remember the machinery we replaced because harvest still came while he was dying.
They did not remember the frost damage that same spring.
They did not remember the distributor that collapsed owing us nearly half a million dollars.
Life had been rude enough to continue being expensive.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You never asked.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No.”
I sat across from her.
“It isn’t.”
She rubbed her thumb along the edge of her phone case.
“So Greg knows?”
“He knows there is financing.”
“How?”
“He asked me last year about the vineyard balance sheet.”
“And you showed him?”
“I showed him summary numbers.”
“Why?”
“Because you told me he could help.”
Her expression tightened.
I regretted saying it that way.
Not because it was untrue.
Because it sounded like blame.
“I did tell you that.”
“Yes.”
“What did you show him?”
“Revenue, operating expenses, debt service, equipment loans, some projections.”
“Everything?”
“No.”
“What didn’t you show?”
“Personal accounts, employee compensation details, tax returns.”
She looked toward the door where Greg had been.
“What does he mean by real numbers?”
“I don’t know.”
My phone rang again.
Michael.
This time I answered before the second ring.
“Please tell me you found something useful.”
“I found several useful things.”
May you like
“That sounds expensive.”
“It usually is.”
