Chương 10
I pictured Patrick on their porch, already dressed like he had someplace more important to be, carrying fourteen thousand six hundred dollars of fury.
“What happened?”
“He wanted statements.”
“From Mom?”
“From both of us.”
“And did you give them to him?”
“Some.”
“Some?”
“Allison, I’m seventy-two years old.”
“You’re sixty-eight.”
“I feel seventy-two.”
Despite everything, I laughed once.
Dad did not.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I sat at the table.
“What did he find?”
“He found transfers.”
“How many?”
“More than I remembered.”
My stomach tightened.
“How much?”
“I don’t have a total yet.”
“Dad.”
“Your brother took pictures.”
“Of what?”
“Bank statements.”
“Did Mom let him?”
“No.”
That answered more than the words themselves.
“What did she do?”
“She got angry.”
“What kind of angry?”
“The kind you know.”
I did know.
My mother became cold when she still believed she could control the room.
She became loud only after control had begun slipping.
“How bad?”
“She accused him of invading our privacy.”
“Was he?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me.
Dad continued.
“He was also right to ask questions.”
There was something different in his voice.
No sandbags.
No softening.
Just two facts allowed to exist at once.
“What did the transfers show?”
“Patrick sent her money over time.”
“We knew that.”
“The amounts don’t match what she told me.”
I pressed my palm against the tabletop.
“What did she tell you?”
“That most of it was reimbursement.”
“For what?”
“Things she’d paid for you.”
I laughed, but there was nothing funny in it.
“Of course.”
“Some of it was supposedly for household expenses.”
“Supposedly.”
“Yes.”
“Where did it go?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The phrase no longer made me angry.
Not this time.
There was a difference between refusing to know and finally discovering that you had not known.
“Did Mom say?”
“She said we were humiliating her.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She hasn’t answered directly.”
“What did Patrick do?”
“He yelled.”
“Shocking.”
“Then your mother yelled.”
“Less shocking.”
“Then I yelled.”
I sat back.
“You?”
“Yes.”
I almost asked whether he was sure.
“What did you say?”
“That I wanted the truth.”
His voice cracked slightly on the last word.
I looked toward the stairs.
Ethan’s floorboards creaked above me.
“And?”
“She said I was choosing you and Patrick against her.”
There it was.
Even cornered, my mother had turned arithmetic into betrayal.
“What happened after that?”
“Patrick left.”
“With the statements?”
“Pictures of them.”
“And Mom?”
“She locked herself in the bedroom.”
“Is she there now?”
“No.”
A small pause.
“She left.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she take the car?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say where?”
“No.”
“Dad, is she okay to drive?”
“Yes.”
His answer was immediate.
“She’s upset, not impaired.”
That grounded me.
My mother was not fragile glass.
I had spent enough years confusing anger with danger.
“What do you want me to do?”
He hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
I almost laughed again.
Then he added, “Nothing.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“Do nothing.”
“You just told me she drove off.”
“She has her phone.”
“Is she answering?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know she’s fine?”
“I don’t.”
His voice tightened.
“But if she needs help, I will deal with it.”
I said nothing.
Dad inhaled.
“You don’t have to come over and fix this.”
The sentence reached somewhere deep.
It was what he should have said years ago.
Maybe what I had always wanted him to say without knowing the words.
“You sure?”
“No.”
I smiled sadly.
“But I’m saying it anyway.”
After we hung up, I sat at the table until my coffee went cold.
At eleven-thirty, Patrick called.
His voice was clipped.
“I’m sending you screenshots.”
“Dad said you took pictures.”
“He told you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
My phone buzzed repeatedly.
Seven images arrived.
I opened the first.
Bank statements from my parents’ joint account.
Deposits.
Transfers.
Withdrawals.
Most of it looked ordinary enough to mean nothing to me.
Then Patrick said, “Look at May eighteenth.”
I found it.
A transfer from Patrick for $2,400.
Memo: ALLISON RENT + SCHOOL.
My throat tightened.
“I never got that.”
“I figured.”
The next image showed another transfer three months later.
$1,800.
Memo: CAR + UTILITIES.
“I didn’t get that either.”
“I know.”
His voice was flatter now.
“You sound very sure.”
“Because I found more.”
He sent another screenshot.
This one was from his own transaction history.
$3,200.
Memo: ETHAN PROGRAM.
I stared at it.
“There was no program.”
“I know that now.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
Patrick snapped, “Because Mom asked me not to embarrass you.”
I said nothing.
His words had come out too fast, carrying an old conviction that had not entirely died.
He heard it too.
“Okay.”
His voice lowered.
“That sounded bad.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were struggling.”
“I was struggling.”
“That’s what makes this confusing.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“I struggled with money, Patrick.”
“I know.”
“I did not ask Mom for fourteen thousand dollars.”
“I understand that now.”
“Do you?”
A pause.
“I’m getting there.”
That was the first honest answer he had given me in days.
I opened another screenshot.
There were transfers labeled GROCERIES, CAMP, RENT, CAR, SCHOOL.
Some were small.
Some were not.
The descriptions made my life look like a series of emergencies.
“What did she tell you when you sent these?”
“Different things.”
“Such as?”
“That your client payments were late.”
“That happened twice.”
“She made it sound constant.”
I swallowed.
“What else?”
“That Ethan needed tutoring.”
“He never had a tutor.”
“That your landlord threatened eviction.”
My chest tightened.
“That never happened.”
“She said you were too ashamed to tell me.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
Outside, a man across the street washed his truck while music played from his open garage.
The ordinary Sunday morning felt offensive.
“What else?”
Patrick took a breath.
“She told me Ethan’s father stopped paying child support.”
“He has never paid child support.”
“I know.”
May you like
“You know?”
“You told me that years ago.”
