Chương 7
Mom blinked.
“You don’t always manage.”
I picked up the legal pad before Dad could stop me.
There were numbers written down the page.
Mortgage.
Truck.
Payroll.
Credit cards.
Wedding.
Beside the wedding line, Dad had written 38K and circled it twice.
Beneath that was another number.
27,400.
“What is this?”
Dad reached for the pad.
I moved it away.
“What is twenty-seven thousand four hundred?”
“Athena, give me that.”
“What is it?”
Mom sat down.
That frightened me more than if she had shouted.
Dad’s shoulders sagged.
“It’s the amount we owe your sister.”
I looked from him to Mom.
“Brooke?”
Neither spoke.
“Why do you owe Brooke twenty-seven thousand dollars?”
Dad swallowed.
“It was her house fund.”
I stared at him.
“What house fund?”
“The money she and Garrett had saved for a down payment.”
The kitchen seemed to tilt slightly.
I put the legal pad on the table.
“You took Brooke’s down-payment money?”
“We borrowed it,” Mom said.
“Does Garrett know?”
Silence.
I looked at her.
“Does Brooke know?”
Mom’s eyes dropped.
Dad answered.
“She knows some of it.”
“How much is some?”
“She thinks we borrowed ten.”
A laugh escaped me again, but there was nothing funny in it.
“So you owe vendors thirty-eight thousand, you owe Brooke twenty-seven thousand, Garrett thinks you paid for the wedding, and Brooke thinks you took ten thousand from her.”
Dad pressed his fingertips to his forehead.
Mom whispered, “Keep your voice down.”
I looked around the empty kitchen.
“Who exactly are we hiding it from now?”
My phone rang on the table.
The name on the screen was unfamiliar.
A Tennessee number.
I almost ignored it.
Then I saw Mom staring at the phone.
Not casually.
She had gone completely still.
I answered.
“Hello?”
A woman spoke.
“Ms. Sinclair, this is Marjorie Caldwell.”
Across the table, my mother closed her eyes.
I watched my mother’s face while Marjorie waited on the line.
“Hello, Mrs. Caldwell.”
“Marjorie, please.”
Her voice was composed, but there was something underneath it now.
Not anger.
Caution.
“I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”
I looked at my parents.
“No.”
My mother mouthed something at me.
I turned away.
“I wanted to apologize for yesterday,” Marjorie said.
“You don’t owe me an apology.”
“Well, I feel that I do.”
There was a faint clink in the background, like a spoon against china.
“I should have understood something was wrong.”
“You had no reason to.”
“I had some reason.”
I glanced back at Mom.
She was gripping the edge of the table.
Marjorie continued.
“Garrett told me this morning that you’re Brooke’s sister.”
The word sister seemed to fill the kitchen.
My father looked at the floor.
“I am.”
“Yes.”
A pause followed.
Then Marjorie said, “He also told me that you and Brooke are not estranged.”
My mother stood up.
I held up one hand without looking at her.
“That’s correct.”
“I see.”
The disappointment in those two words was almost elegant.
Marjorie was not speaking to me as if I had embarrassed her.
She was speaking as if she had realized someone else had.
“I don’t want to insert myself into private family matters,” she said.
Mom made a tiny sound behind me.
“But I think I already have.”
“What happened?”
“Garrett and Brooke had an argument this morning.”
That surprised me.
“About me?”
“Among other things.”
I walked toward the living room.
The cord on the old blinds tapped lightly against the window frame.
“Is Brooke okay?”
“Yes.”
The answer came quickly enough that I believed it.
“They’re both upset.”
“What did Garrett say?”
Marjorie hesitated.
“I probably shouldn’t repeat their conversation.”
“That’s fair.”
Another pause.
“But he was shocked.”
I understood what she meant without asking.
Garrett had not known the woman outside his wedding was the sister his wife supposedly no longer spoke to.
“He thought I chose not to come.”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes for a moment.
That detail changed something.
Until then, I had imagined Garrett as part of the exclusion.
Maybe not an architect, but a willing participant.
Apparently he had stood at the altar thinking my empty chair was my decision.
“Did Brooke tell him the truth?”
“I don’t know how much truth was exchanged.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
That sounded exactly like Marjorie.
Careful enough not to accuse anyone, precise enough not to pretend.
“I called because I would like to understand one practical matter,” she said.
My shoulders tightened.
“What?”
“The vendors.”
There it was.
I turned slowly.
My mother was watching me from the kitchen doorway.
Dad still sat at the table.
“What about them?”
“Garrett received a message from Brooke that there may be a payment issue.”
I looked directly at my mother.
She shook her head.
I ignored her.
“There is.”
Marjorie’s silence lasted half a second too long.
“Were you paying for the wedding?”
“I paid the deposits.”
Mom crossed the room toward me.
I moved farther away.
“And the remaining balance?” Marjorie asked.
“I’m the contract holder on several accounts.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
No, it was not.
“I was told my parents would cover the remaining balance.”
Marjorie exhaled slowly.
“I see.”
Again, those two words.
This time they carried more weight.
“Did you believe we were paying?” I asked.
“Our understanding was that Diane and Richard were hosting the wedding.”
My mother whispered, “Athena.”
I turned my back to her.
“Did they tell you that explicitly?”
“Yes.”
Dad made a low sound from the kitchen.
Marjorie continued.
“Garrett and Brooke were contributing to their honeymoon and saving for a house.”
I stared at the hallway wall.
A framed school photograph of Brooke at sixteen still hung there.
She had braces and a blue ribbon in her hair.
“Do you know about the house fund?” I asked.
My mother’s footsteps stopped behind me.
Marjorie went quiet.
“What about it?”
I looked at Dad.
He shook his head once.
Not denial.
May you like
Warning.
I could have told her everything.
