Chương 9
“That’s fair.”
We hung up.
I remained at the table until nearly one.
Jessica never sent another message.
Patrick’s three texts were still unopened.
Eventually I read them.
The first said, If you want to be independent, be independent.
The second said, Mom and Dad are done bailing you out.
The third had arrived twenty minutes later.
And don’t come asking me next time.
I typed a response.
How much money do you think you’ve given me?
I stared at the sentence.
Then I sent it.
His reply came less than a minute later.
Not directly.
I typed, Then how much through Mom?
The typing indicator appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Finally a number came through.
$14,600.
I read it twice.
Then another message arrived.
That’s just what I know about.
My hands went numb.
I typed, I never got that money.
This time there was no immediate reply.
Three minutes passed.
Then five.
At twelve minutes, the phone rang.
Patrick.
I answered.
Neither of us spoke at first.
Then my brother said, very quietly, “What do you mean, you never got it?”
His anger was gone.
That frightened me more.
I sat down again.
“I mean exactly that.”
“Mom said you needed help.”
“I didn’t get fourteen thousand six hundred dollars.”
“She said rent.”
“No.”
“Your car.”
“No.”
“After-school care.”
“I’ve never had after-school care.”
He stopped breathing for a second.
I heard movement on his end, then a door closing.
“She told me Ethan was in a program because you worked late.”
“I work from home.”
“I know that.”
His voice sounded strange now.
He knew it, but somehow the lie had lived beside that fact without being challenged.
Family stories were good at that.
They did not need to make sense if they arrived from the right person.
“Patrick, Dad says some of the money covered his medical bills.”
“What medical bills?”
“He had a procedure last year.”
“I paid for that separately.”
I sat perfectly still.
“What?”
“I gave Dad four grand.”
“Dad just told me Mom borrowed from you partly because of his medical bills.”
“No.”
Patrick’s voice sharpened.
“No, Allison.”
I could hear him moving again.
“Dad called me himself about that one.”
Something cold settled behind my ribs.
Neither of us spoke.
Then Patrick said, “Where is the fourteen-six?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Dad take it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Mom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop saying that.”
I nearly laughed at the repetition.
“I heard the same thing an hour ago.”
Patrick went quiet.
Then he said, “I’m coming over.”
“No.”
“I need to see your bank records.”
My anger came back instantly.
“You absolutely do not.”
“If you’re saying you didn’t get the money—”
“I am saying that.”
“Then prove it.”
There he was again.
The brother I knew.
The one whose first instinct under pressure was to demand that someone else stand trial.
“No.”
“Allison.”
“You don’t get access to my finances because Mom lied to you.”
“How else am I supposed to know?”
“You can start by asking the person you actually gave money to.”
He cursed.
Then he said something I had never heard from him before.
“What if she lies?”
The question hung between us.
Not she might.
What if.
For the first time, Patrick was looking at the same door I had been staring at for years.
He just had not opened it yet.
“I think Dad is calling you in the morning.”
“Why?”
“To tell you what he knows.”
Patrick gave a short, bitter laugh.
“That should be interesting.”
“Don’t go over there tonight.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
He absolutely had been.
“Patrick.”
“What?”
“Ethan is asleep.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean this cannot become another thing that lands on him.”
His voice softened by half a degree.
“It won’t.”
I wanted to believe him.
Then he added, “But if Mom took fourteen thousand dollars using your name, this family has a much bigger problem than a birthday party.”
I looked at the dark screen of my laptop.
For once, my brother and I agreed.
The problem was that neither of us yet knew how much bigger.
Sunday morning arrived with no call from my father.
By nine-thirty, I had checked my phone eleven times.
At ten, Ethan came into the kitchen wearing one sock and asked whether cereal counted as lunch if you slept late enough.
“It counts as poor planning.”
“So yes?”
“So get the milk.”
He poured too much cereal into a bowl, then ate it standing at the counter while I pretended not to watch the phone.
“Are Grandma and Grandpa mad?”
I looked at him.
He had asked it casually, but his spoon had stopped halfway to his mouth.
“They’re dealing with grown-up stuff.”
“That means yes.”
“It means complicated.”
“That also means yes.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Eat your cereal.”
He did.
A minute later he said, “Did I make everybody fight?”
“No.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
He looked down into the bowl.
“The party was fun.”
“It was.”
“Even when Grandma came.”
I waited.
He added, “Mostly.”
I crossed the kitchen and leaned against the counter beside him.
“You’re allowed to remember the fun part.”
He nodded.
“You’re also allowed to remember the bad part.”
Another nod.
“And none of it was your job to fix.”
He looked at me.
“Is it your job?”
The question landed harder than it should have.
“No.”
I said it slowly.
“No, I don’t think it is anymore.”
At ten-fifteen, Dad finally called.
I sent Ethan upstairs with a warning not to spend the entire morning on his tablet.
He said, “Define entire,” and disappeared before I could answer.
I took the call.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yes.”
Dad sounded exhausted.
“And?”
“He’s angry.”
“That narrows nothing down.”
“He came over.”
I closed my eyes.
“I told him not to.”
“He didn’t listen.”
May you like
“Of course he didn’t.”
“Your mother woke me up at seven because he was pounding on the front door.”
