Chương 2
“It isn’t.”
I walked to the sink and filled a glass of water.
My hands had started trembling, and I did not want Kelsey to see.
For two hours I had enjoyed knowing something they didn’t.
I had told myself I was teaching them a lesson.
Standing there now, surrounded by their belongings and my father’s shame, the whole thing felt less satisfying.
It also did not make them my tenants.
I drank half the water.
“Everybody needs to stop moving things in.”
Kelsey stared at me.
“Where are we supposed to go?”
“I don’t know.”
“We gave up our apartment.”
“I didn’t tell you to.”
“You knew we were doing it.”
“I learned that this morning.”
“The kids are at my sister’s waiting for their new rooms.”
That landed differently.
Evan was seven.
Maddie was four.
Neither of them had invented this disaster.
I put the glass down.
“How long can they stay with your sister?”
Denise answered before Kelsey could.
“Tonight, maybe tomorrow.”
Kelsey’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because the children aren’t sleeping in a moving truck.”
Ryan stepped closer.
“Jenna, please.”
I hated that word from him.
Please had usually arrived after every other option had been exhausted.
Please, cover dinner.
Please, pick up Mom.
Please, lend me the money until Friday.
Please, don’t tell Dad.
“What are you asking me for?”
“Just give us a few days.”
Kelsey looked at him as if he had betrayed her by asking.
“This was supposed to be our home.”
“It was never your home.”
She turned toward me.
“You keep saying that like I’m stupid.”
I said nothing.
Her cheeks flushed.
“Go ahead.”
“Kelsey.”
“No, Ryan, she wants to say it.”
“I don’t.”
“You’ve been standing there enjoying this.”
That accusation was harder to dismiss because part of it was true.
“I enjoyed watching you discover that paperwork matters.”
Mom made a disgusted sound.
“Jenna.”
“I did.”
Kelsey’s eyes shone, but she refused to blink.
“You’ve always hated me.”
“No.”
“You think you’re better than us.”
“No.”
“You bought this place secretly so you could parade it in front of everybody.”
“I bought it secretly so nobody would ask me for anything.”
That silenced Mom.
Ryan looked away.
Kelsey opened her mouth, then closed it.
Dad walked toward the foyer.
He picked up a roll of packing tape from the floor and turned it in his hands.
Nobody seemed to know what to do next.
A mover eventually knocked against the doorframe.
“Sorry, but I need whoever hired us.”
Ryan raised his hand.
The man approached cautiously.
“We’ve got about half the truck still loaded, and my guys need direction.”
Ryan looked at me.
I shook my head.
“Nothing else comes inside.”
The mover nodded with visible relief.
“What about what’s already in here?”
“That goes back out.”
Kelsey stared at me.
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
“Jenna, come on,” Mom said.
“This is your brother.”
“That’s why I’m not calling the police and having strangers remove everything.”
Ryan’s head snapped up.
“The police?”
“What would you do if you came home and found another family moving into your house?”
His expression answered for him.
The mover cleared his throat.
“We can reload, but there’ll be additional labor.”
“How much?” Ryan asked.
“I’ll calculate it.”
Ryan rubbed his forehead.
I knew that gesture.
Money was bad.
I had seen the same gesture at restaurants when the check arrived.
Dad reached for his wallet.
I surprised myself by saying, “No.”
He looked at me.
“Let him handle it.”
Ryan’s face hardened.
“You know I just paid almost four grand for this move.”
“Then you should probably find out what reloading costs.”
“You really need to make your point this badly?”
“My point is that your decisions cost you money now.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then he turned to the mover.
“Give me the number.”
The man walked outside with him.
Kelsey remained beside the island.
Her anger had drained enough to reveal something underneath it.
Fear.
She looked around my kitchen differently now.
Not like an owner evaluating tile.
Like someone standing somewhere she had no right to be.
“I already changed our mailing address,” she said.
I almost laughed, but she wasn’t joking.
“To here?”
She nodded.
“You need to change it back.”
“I changed the school forms too.”
My stomach sank.
“For Evan?”
“We thought this was our address.”
“You can’t use it.”
“I know that now.”
She sank onto a stool.
For the first time that morning, she looked tired.
Not furious.
Not entitled.
Just tired.
Mom walked toward her and rested a hand on her shoulder.
Kelsey shrugged it off.
“Please don’t.”
Mom stopped.
Kelsey stared at the bent corner of the settlement statement.
Then she looked at me.
“How did you buy a million-dollar house?”
The question sounded different this time.
Less accusation.
More bewilderment.
“I saved.”
“For what, twenty years?”
“Pretty much.”
Ryan had returned quietly enough that none of us noticed until he spoke.
“You had that kind of money while we were struggling?”
I looked at him.
There was no admiration in his face.
There was hurt.
And beneath the hurt was the old assumption, alive and well, that whatever I possessed had somehow been withheld from him.
That was when I knew the house was only the beginning.
Ryan’s expression hardened as if my savings had become evidence against me.
“We were struggling,” he said again.
I glanced toward the front windows, where two movers were carrying his sectional back across my porch.
“You were spending more than you earned.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It’s exactly the same thing when you ask why I didn’t give you my money.”
Kelsey looked between us.
“Wait, how much did you know she had?”
“Nothing.”
Ryan’s answer came too fast.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, then pulled them out again.
“I knew she was doing okay.”
May you like
Mom lowered herself onto the stool beside Kelsey.
“Jenna has always been private.”
