Chương 3
“That is a very gentle word for it,” Ryan said.
I felt something hot move through my chest.
“Would you prefer secretive?”
“I’d prefer honest.”
Dad looked up from the roll of packing tape.
“Ryan.”
“No, seriously.”
Ryan pointed at the settlement statement.
“She sits through every Christmas dinner listening to us talk about money, and the whole time she can buy a place like this?”
“You talked about money,” I said.
“You usually talked about how somebody else should fix it.”
His jaw tightened.
Kelsey pressed both palms against the island.
“Can we not do twenty years of sibling issues right now?”
Ryan ignored her.
“When Evan needed dental work, you knew we were putting it on a credit card.”
“And I paid for half of it.”
“You said that was his birthday present.”
“Because if I called it help, you would have asked for more.”
Mom inhaled sharply.
Ryan stared at me.
“That’s what you think of me?”
I almost answered immediately.
Then I saw his face.
Not anger this time.
Something younger.
Something wounded enough to make me remember him at fourteen, standing outside our parents’ bedroom after Dad had been laid off, pretending he had only gone upstairs for a phone charger.
The memory vanished when Ryan said, “You could have trusted me.”
I laughed once.
It sounded uglier than I intended.
“Trusted you with what?”
“With knowing your life.”
“My life is not an emergency fund for yours.”
Kelsey stood.
“Okay.”
She wiped her palms against her white jeans.
“That’s enough.”
Ryan turned toward her.
“I’m talking to my sister.”
“And I’m trying to figure out where our children are sleeping tomorrow.”
That stopped him.
Kelsey looked at me.
Her eyes were red now, but her voice had become practical.
“Can the boxes stay here overnight?”
“No.”
She nodded slowly as though she had expected that.
“What about the furniture?”
“No.”
“All right.”
Ryan stared at her.
“You’re just accepting this?”
“What exactly would you like me to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I, Ryan.”
She reached for her phone.
“I’m calling my sister.”
Denise stood from the box.
“I can take some things to my garage.”
“You don’t have room.”
“I have a garage.”
“You have your lawn chairs, three broken bookcases, and Dad’s fishing freezer.”
“It’s still a garage.”
Despite everything, Kelsey almost smiled.
Denise touched her daughter’s arm.
“We’ll make room.”
Kelsey nodded and walked into the dining room with her phone pressed to her ear.
For several seconds, none of us spoke.
The movers passed through carrying the sectional piece by piece.
A strip of blue painter’s tape had peeled from the baseboard and stuck to one man’s shoe.
He noticed it at the front door, bent down, and carefully pressed it onto the wall.
The tiny courtesy nearly undid me.
Dad came beside me.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He flinched.
I regretted the sharpness but not enough to take it back.
Mom rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“We need a solution.”
“There was a solution.”
She looked at me.
“The townhouse.”
Ryan scoffed.
“That place is probably gone.”
“Did you ever apply?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know.”
He pulled out his phone.
The rental listing was still open in one of his browser tabs.
I watched him read.
His face changed.
“What?”
Dad asked.
Ryan turned the screen around.
“Available October first.”
Mom blinked.
“That’s a month away.”
“Thirty days,” Ryan said.
“I know what a month is.”
Dad took out his own phone.
“I’ll call the management office.”
“They’re closed,” Ryan said.
“It’s Saturday.”
Dad looked at the time anyway.
The ordinary uselessness of that gesture made everyone seem suddenly exhausted.
I walked into the living room.
The room had been almost empty when I arrived that morning.
Now pale rectangles marked places where Ryan’s furniture had sat for only two hours.
A framed wedding photograph remained against the wall near the fireplace.
Ryan and Kelsey were laughing in it.
I had taken that picture seven years earlier after their photographer disappeared to photograph the sunset.
I remembered Kelsey grabbing my hand after I showed her the image on my phone.
You made me look happy, she had said.
I had thought it was a strange thing for a bride to say.
Ryan came in behind me.
“That one’s ours.”
“I know.”
He picked up the photograph.
For a moment we stood there without fighting.
Then he said, “I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“I’m not saying that fixes anything.”
“It doesn’t.”
He ran his thumb along the frame.
“I really thought Mom and Dad had done this.”
“Why?”
He gave me a tired look.
“Because they said they were helping.”
“Helping is not buying a million-dollar house.”
“Dad has investments.”
“Dad has a pension and a brokerage account he checks like it’s a sick child.”
Ryan smiled despite himself.
It lasted less than a second.
“I didn’t think about the numbers.”
“That seems to be a recurring theme.”
“There you are.”
“What?”
“The little knife.”
I folded my arms.
“You asked.”
“I know.”
He set the photograph on a box.
His shoulders sagged.
“I got laid off.”
The room seemed to lose sound.
I looked at him.
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
I waited for the obvious second half.
It came.
“Kelsey doesn’t know.”
I closed my eyes.
“Ryan.”
“I’ve had interviews.”
“You’ve been pretending to go to work?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does not exactly mean?”
“I leave the house.”
“Where do you go?”
“Coffee shops.”
I stared at him.
“Sometimes the library.”
“You have two children.”
“I know how many children I have.”
“Does Mom know?”
“No.”
“Dad?”
Ryan hesitated.
There it was.
“Dad knows.”
I turned toward the kitchen.
Dad was visible through the doorway, speaking quietly with Mom.
The pieces started fitting together in a way I did not like.
“Is that why he offered to help with housing?”
May you like
Ryan nodded.
“He covered August rent too.”
