Chương 11
I leaned back slowly.
“That’s private.”
“I know.”
“Did he tell anyone else?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said enough like there’s more.”
Mark pressed his lips together.
Then he pulled another page from the envelope.
“This is why I asked you to meet.”
It was a screenshot of a message from Dad to Mark.
Dad: Don’t worry about qualifying right now.
Dad: Jack has enough equity from the down payment that there are ways to structure it.
I read it once.
Then again.
“What does ‘structure it’ mean?”
“I asked.”
Mark handed me the next page.
Mark: Structure what?
Dad: Seller financing, lease option, family loan.
Mark: Is Jack actually talking about this?
Dad: He will.
My skin went cold.
I looked up.
“He will.”
“Yeah.”
“Not ‘maybe.’”
“No.”
“Not ‘I’ll ask him.’”
“No.”
“He will.”
Mark nodded.
The waitress came back.
Neither of us had looked at the menus.
She glanced at the papers between us.
“Bad divorce?”
“Family,” Mark said.
She grimaced sympathetically.
“Worse.”
I almost laughed.
This time, so did Mark.
It lasted maybe two seconds.
Then she left again.
I looked at the screenshot.
“What did you say after this?”
“Turn the page.”
Mark: He told you he’d do that?
Dad: Jack is reasonable.
Mark: That’s not what I asked.
Dad: He knows family comes first.
Mark: Did he say yes?
Dad: Leave that to me.
I felt something settle in my chest.
Not anger.
Anger moved.
This was heavier.
“Did that bother you?”
“Yes.”
“Enough to stop?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Then he said, “Because I needed it to be true.”
That was the most honest thing he had said.
I folded my arms.
“And when I bought this actual house?”
“Mom called me before you posted the picture.”
“How?”
“Dad knew closing was that morning.”
I remembered his text asking how signing went.
I had thought he was excited for me.
“What did she say?”
Mark looked miserable.
“That they had talked to you.”
“They hadn’t.”
“I know.”
“What did she say you agreed to?”
“That you’d live there for a while, then sell to us when we were ready.”
I stared at him.
“That specific?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed it.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you thank me?”
His face changed.
“What?”
“If I had agreed to something that huge, why didn’t you call me?”
He opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
That question had apparently never occurred to him.
I leaned forward.
“You thought your brother had just bought a seven-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar house partly for your benefit, and you sent me ‘Nice.’”
Mark looked down.
“I was embarrassed.”
“About what?”
“Needing it.”
The answer came quietly.
“I didn’t want to have the conversation.”
“So you let Mom and Dad have it for you.”
“Yeah.”
“And that made it easier not to notice there had never been a conversation with me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Yeah.”
For once, I didn’t feel triumphant hearing him admit it.
I felt tired.
We finally ordered.
He got eggs and toast.
I got oatmeal because it was the first thing I saw.
Neither of us ate much.
Halfway through the meal, Mark said, “There’s one more thing.”
I set my spoon down.
“Of course there is.”
He pulled his phone from his pocket instead of another page.
“This happened Sunday night.”
“After the locks?”
“After you kicked us out.”
“I kicked you out before the locks.”
“You know what I mean.”
He opened a voicemail.
“Dad left this when I didn’t answer.”
He placed the phone between us and pressed play.
Dad’s voice filled the small space between our coffee cups.
“Mark, call me when you get this.”
There was a pause.
“Your brother is being emotional, but don’t let that derail anything.”
Another pause.
“We may need to change tactics.”
I felt the muscles in my shoulders tighten.
Dad continued.
“Do not discuss the financing idea with Jack yet.”
My eyes moved to Mark.
His face had gone pale.
The voicemail went on.
“If he thinks this is about taking something from him, he’ll dig in.”
Dad cleared his throat.
“We need him to think it’s his decision.”
The recording ended.
Neither of us moved.
A fork clattered somewhere behind me.
Someone at the counter laughed.
The coffee machine hissed.
Normal sounds.
I stared at Mark’s phone.
“When did you hear that?”
“Last night.”
“You never played it before?”
“I saw the voicemail and ignored it.”
“Why?”
“Because I was mad at him.”
I looked at my brother.
For the first time since this started, he looked less like the person who wanted my house and more like someone who had discovered he had been used to get it.
“What tactics?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You were part of this.”
“Not that part.”
“What part were you part of?”
He flinched.
Fair.
I had meant it to hurt.
“I was part of believing them.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I know.”
“I need more than ‘I know.’”
His jaw tightened.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Tell them the truth.”
“To who?”
“Everyone.”
He leaned back.
“You want me to post all this in the family chat?”
“I want you to correct the lie that I offered you my house.”
“That’ll blow everything up.”
“It’s already blown up.”
“For you.”
I stared at him.
He looked away immediately.
“Okay,” he said.
“That came out wrong.”
“No, it came out right.”
“Jack.”
“For me.”
“I meant Mom and Dad will lose their minds.”
“They boxed up my photographs.”
“What?”
I hadn’t told him.
I took out my phone and showed him the picture of the box.
Then Emily’s screenshot saying I wanted no contact.
Mark read it without speaking.
His face hardened slowly.
“They said you asked for space.”
“I didn’t.”
“They told me the same thing.”
“I know.”
“I thought that part was true.”
“I know.”
The repetition sounded different now.
Mark scrolled through the screenshot again.
May you like
Then he handed my phone back.
“I’ll correct it.”
