Chương 13
“So how?”
“We’ll get a lesson.”
He smiled in the dark.
“Okay.”
I closed the door most of the way and stood in the hall.
My phone showed twelve unread messages.
Three from my mother.
Two from my father.
Four from Mark.
One from Jenna.
Two from the hospital.
I opened the hospital messages first.
Habit.
One was about a schedule change.
The other was from the chief resident asking whether I could cover an early case.
I typed no.
Then I stared at the word before sending it.
No.
Simple.
Two letters.
Strangely difficult.
I sent it.
Mark’s messages came next.
He had found another card.
Not thirty-seven thousand total.
Forty-three.
He had also discovered Jenna had been paying one balance with cash advances from another.
His last message said they were staying at a hotel because he did not trust himself to have the conversation in front of the boys.
I wrote back that the twins should not hear details they could not carry.
He answered almost immediately.
Agreed.
Then another message came.
Did she ever ask you for money directly?
I typed no.
Deleted it.
Typed not recently.
Deleted that too.
Finally I wrote, Once last year, $4,000.
The typing indicator appeared.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
For what?
Car repairs, according to her.
A long pause.
Then:
There were no car repairs.
I sat down on the kitchen stool.
The refrigerator hummed.
The broken sailboat sat under painter’s tape on the table.
I called Mark.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hey.”
“Where are you?”
“Hotel in Marina del Rey.”
“The boys okay?”
“They think our air conditioner broke.”
“That’s going to hold for maybe twelve hours.”
“I know.”
His voice sounded exhausted.
“Did you send her four grand?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last October.”
“She told me her transmission was failing.”
“Our transmission never failed.”
“Apparently.”
He was silent.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being another number.”
He laughed softly.
“Yeah.”
Then he sighed.
“I keep thinking I must’ve missed something obvious.”
“You probably did.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not being cruel.”
“I know.”
I leaned back.
“People miss things when the alternative is inconvenient.”
“That’s comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
He was quiet again.
“Do you think she’s sick?”
The question surprised me.
“With what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t medicalize it just because it hurts.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
I softened my voice.
“She panicked.”
“For five months?”
“People can panic for a long time.”
“Would you stay?”
I looked toward the hallway.
“That’s not mine to answer.”
“I know.”
He exhaled.
“I hate that answer.”
“It’s still the right one.”
“Probably.”
I asked whether he had frozen the cards.
He had.
Whether he had checked his credit.
He had started.
Whether he had found accounts in his name he did not recognize.
Not yet.
The yet stayed between us.
Before we hung up, he said, “She keeps saying she was going to fix it.”
“I know.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means she needed a future version of herself to save the current one.”
He was silent.
“That’s depressing.”
“Yes.”
After the call, I opened Jenna’s message.
I didn’t make the car repair thing up because I wanted your money.
I stared at it.
Then another message appeared.
I needed the money, but I told myself I would pay it back before you ever noticed.
Then:
That probably sounds worse.
I typed:
It does.
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Returned.
I deserve that.
I set the phone down.
My mother’s messages were all variations of please call.
My father’s were shorter.
We need to talk.
I did not call either of them.
Instead, I walked onto the patio.
The ocean was black except where moonlight broke across it.
A couple farther down the beach argued quietly while carrying folding chairs.
Someone laughed from a balcony.
A helicopter moved inland, its light blinking red.
I thought about the offer.
One point two million.
Ten-day close.
Cash.
Clean exit.
For six weeks, that had sounded like relief.
Now I could not tell whether relief was what I wanted or merely what I was good at choosing.
I took out my phone and called Caroline.
She answered quickly.
“I was wondering whether I’d hear from you tonight.”
“I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“If I turn down the offer, what happens?”
“We list.”
“And if I don’t list?”
A pause.
“Then we pause.”
“Is that a problem?”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“For the buyers?”
“They’ll move on.”
“Good.”
She was quiet for a second.
“That sounded more definite than you probably intended.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you want my opinion?”
“Professional or personal?”
“I’m capable of both.”
“Professional.”
“It’s a strong offer.”
“Personal?”
She hesitated.
“I think you’ve had a terrible day and shouldn’t make a million-dollar decision tonight.”
I looked through the glass doors toward the hallway where my children slept.
“That sounds expensive for you.”
“I’ll survive.”
I smiled.
“Thank you.”
“So no answer tonight?”
“No.”
“Fair.”
I almost hung up.
Then I said, “Caroline.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t take the listing live tomorrow morning.”
Another pause.
“You want to delay?”
“I do.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.”
It surprised me how good those words felt coming from someone who did not need me to know.
After we hung up, I sat on the patio until nearly midnight.
I did not solve anything.
That was new.
In the morning, Eli woke me by knocking on my bedroom door at six forty-three.
“You said surfing.”
“I did.”
“You’re asleep.”
“I was.”
“That seems like a planning error.”
I opened one eye.
“Who raised you?”
“You.”
“Unfortunate.”
He grinned.
We found a surf school a few miles away that could take us at nine.
Zoe announced she would not surf because sharks preferred small people.
The instructor, a woman named Tessa with sun-bleached hair and the patience of a saint, told her sharks did not attend beginner lessons.
May you like
Zoe considered this legitimate expertise.
She agreed to sit on the sand with a juice box and judge us.
