Chương 12
She nodded once.
The movement was so small it felt insulting.
"Say it."
Her eyes filled.
"Yes."
Richard shifted on the stairs.
I turned toward him.
"You were in my house before Dad died."
He said nothing.
I saw it then.
Not a memory exactly.
A fragment.
Richard standing in our kitchen wearing work boots, talking to my father about cabinet measurements.
Mom laughing at something near the sink.
Dad looking tired.
At sixteen, none of it had meant anything.
Now every detail seemed infected.
"How long?"
Mom gripped the railing.
"About four months."
Derek whispered, "Jesus."
Richard snapped, "It wasn't like that."
I laughed.
The sound was ugly.
"It was exactly like that."
"No."
He stepped up one stair.
"Your parents' marriage was already over."
Mom flinched.
I looked at her.
"Was it?"
She swallowed.
"We were having problems."
"That's not what I asked."
She rubbed her forehead.
"Your father had been traveling constantly."
I waited.
"He was angry."
"About you sleeping with Richard?"
Her mouth trembled.
"After he found out, yes."
Derek looked physically ill.
He backed away from the staircase and sat on the bottom edge of the kitchen counter.
Richard's voice hardened.
"Mark wasn't some saint."
I turned on him.
"Be very careful."
"I am not insulting him."
"You've been insulting him for fifteen years."
He shook his head.
"You knew the version of your father that a child knows."
"And you knew the version my mother was cheating with."
Mom whispered, "Thea."
I looked at her.
"What exactly do you want me to call it?"
She had no answer.
The basement phone stopped ringing again.
This time a voice came from below.
Tinny.
Recorded.
A voicemail greeting.
Then silence.
Jonah's voice came from my phone in my hand.
"Thea."
I had almost forgotten he was still there.
"Yeah."
"I'm five minutes out."
Richard's eyes narrowed.
"You brought someone else into this?"
I stared at him.
"You announced my life to fifty strangers tonight."
"That's different."
"Of course it is."
Mom stepped off the last kitchen tile and leaned against the wall.
"Mark found emails."
I looked at her.
The words seemed to cost her something.
"Between Richard and me."
"What emails?"
"Plans."
"For what?"
She looked down.
"Leaving."
My stomach turned.
"You were planning to leave Dad for him?"
"Yes."
"And Dad found out."
"Yes."
"Then changed the insurance."
"I think so."
Richard shook his head.
"You know so."
Mom looked at him sharply.
He continued.
"Mark confronted her."
Derek stared at his father.
"You were there?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
Richard hesitated.
That hesitation mattered.
I stepped closer.
"How do you know?"
He looked toward Mom.
She whispered, "I told him."
"When?"
"The same night."
I felt something cold settle behind my ribs.
My father's last weeks had suddenly become populated with conversations I had never known existed.
"Did Dad know who Richard was?"
Mom nodded.
"Yes."
"Did he confront him?"
"No."
Richard answered this time.
"He called me."
I stared at him.
"When?"
"Two days later."
"What did he say?"
Richard's mouth tightened.
"He told me to stay away from his family."
A laugh escaped Derek.
It wasn't amused.
"That tracks."
Richard ignored him.
"He also said he was changing everything."
"Everything meaning what?"
"His will."
Mom closed her eyes.
"The beneficiary."
"And?"
Richard looked at me.
"Ownership documents."
I frowned.
"What ownership documents?"
He said nothing.
I stepped forward.
"Richard."
His gaze shifted toward the basement.
That was enough.
The ringing phone.
The box of files.
The locked office.
Whatever was down there mattered more than the affair.
I moved toward the basement stairs.
Richard stepped up and blocked me.
"No."
I stopped one step above him.
"Move."
"This is not your property."
Mom said, "It is mine."
He looked back.
"You have no idea what's in that office."
"Then show me."
"You'll misinterpret it."
Derek let out a bitter laugh.
"That sentence is getting old."
Richard turned toward him.
"This is complicated financial history."
"So explain it."
"I don't owe you an accounting of every decision I've made."
Derek held up his phone.
"You borrowed against my trust."
"I invested for your future."
"My future has a mortgage lien I didn't know existed."
Richard's face flushed.
"Because that investment kept the company alive."
"Then say you used me."
"I used resources available to the family."
Derek stood.
"Stop calling theft family resources."
Richard took a step toward him.
I stepped between them without thinking.
For a second, all three of us froze.
Richard looked down at me.
His anger seemed to falter.
Maybe because I was no longer seventeen.
Maybe because Jonah was still on the phone.
Maybe because Mom was watching differently now.
Then headlights swept across the front windows.
A car pulled into the driveway.
Jonah's voice came through my phone.
"I'm here."
I exhaled.
Richard looked toward the window.
"Perfect."
He started up the stairs.
"Now we can turn this into a neighborhood circus."
Mom blocked the kitchen doorway.
He stopped.
She had never blocked him physically before, at least not that I had seen.
"Open the office."
"Linda."
"Open it."
His face went still.
"What are you going to do if I don't?"
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then she held up her phone.
"Call the police."
Everyone went quiet.
Richard almost smiled.
"For what?"
"For taking money from my personal account without permission."
"You authorized access."
"Not those transfers."
"You don't know what you authorized."
"I know what I didn't."
He stared at her.
Something in his expression changed.
Not fear exactly.
Calculation.
The doorbell rang.
Nobody moved.
Then Jonah knocked.
I went to the front door.
When I opened it, he looked at my face first, not the house behind me.
He wore jeans, an old gray sweatshirt, and one shoe was untied.
He had clearly left home fast.
"You okay?"
"No."
He nodded.
"Okay."
No speech.
No immediate hug.
May you like
He just stepped inside when I moved aside.
That made me love him more than if he had tried to rescue me.
