Chương 4
Dad had changed the beneficiary from my mother to me.
After he died, she challenged it.
I remembered sitting at our kitchen table three days after the funeral while Mom signed forms without reading them and told me to go upstairs whenever an adult came over.
I remembered Richard appearing months later, first as the man helping with "financial things," then as the man who stayed for dinner, then the man whose toothbrush appeared beside hers.
A cold pressure settled behind my ribs.
"How did Richard know about the policy?"
My mother looked at him.
There it was.
A pause too long.
Richard crossed his arms.
"I was advising Linda."
"You were her contractor."
"I owned a contracting company."
"You remodeled our kitchen."
"I had business experience."
Derek made a face.
"That doesn't answer her question."
Richard looked at his son.
"Stay out of this."
"No."
Derek's voice changed.
For the first time that night, he sounded less like the boy who had mocked me and more like a tired adult.
"You keep saying that every time it gets uncomfortable."
My mother pressed both palms against the table.
"Richard knew someone who handled insurance disputes."
My stomach tightened.
"And what happened?"
"The insurer froze the payment."
"For how long?"
"Months."
"And then?"
Mom looked at me.
"We settled."
I waited.
She didn't continue.
"Mom."
Her eyes filled, but she blinked the tears back.
"The money was paid into an account controlled by me."
I felt my fingers curl around the chair.
"All of it?"
"After fees."
"How much?"
"About six hundred and eighty."
"Thousand?"
She nodded.
A laugh almost escaped me again, but this time there was nothing funny in it.
I walked to the credenza and stared down at the abandoned cheese tray because I could not look at either of them.
Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
At seventeen, I had been rationing bus fare.
At eighteen, I had worked opening shifts at a coffee shop before class and closed the design lab after midnight because my apartment didn't have room for a drafting table.
I had once lived on oatmeal for six days because my paycheck cleared late.
And my mother had controlled nearly seven hundred thousand dollars my father had intended for me.
Behind me, Derek said, "Where did it go?"
No one answered.
He repeated it.
"Where did the money go?"
Richard snapped, "You don't know what things cost."
Derek stared at him.
"What things?"
"The house."
My mother flinched.
I turned around.
Richard had finally abandoned caution.
"The house, tuition, vehicles, debts, legal fees, medical costs, everything that happens in an actual family."
An actual family.
The phrase landed exactly where he meant it to.
I looked at my mother.
"You used Dad's insurance to buy Richard's house?"
"It became our house."
"Mine too?"
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
I nodded.
"Right."
"Thea, I was terrified."
Her voice cracked now.
"I had a mortgage, no job that could support us, bills coming in, and your father left me with things I didn't understand."
"He left me money."
"He left a child money."
"He left his child money."
"You were sixteen."
"And you spent it."
"I was trying to keep us afloat."
"Us?"
My voice rose despite myself.
"What part of the storage closet was keeping me afloat?"
Richard pushed away from the door.
"That's enough."
I turned on him so quickly he stopped.
"No."
I surprised myself with how calm I sounded.
"You don't get to decide when enough is enough."
His face flushed.
"You come in here with your building and your money and act like you understand what happened."
"I understand you told me this house doesn't support freeloaders while you were living in a house bought with my father's life insurance."
Derek closed his eyes.
Richard went pale.
My mother covered her mouth.
That was the first moment the truth felt fully real.
Not when she said the number.
Not when she admitted the settlement.
It became real when I heard my own sentence.
Richard had thrown me out of a home I had helped pay for without ever knowing it.
I pulled out a chair and sat because my knees had started shaking.
Nobody said anything for several seconds.
From the ballroom came a burst of applause for something we could not see.
The timing was so absurd that Derek let out a short laugh.
Then he looked ashamed of himself.
"Sorry."
I rubbed my palms against my dress.
"What about Derek's college?"
Derek looked at me.
My mother looked down.
I already knew.
I just needed someone to say it.
Richard spoke first.
"That was family money by then."
Derek's face changed.
"No."
Richard looked at him.
"What?"
"No, don't say it like that."
He pushed away from the wall.
"My tuition came from her dad's policy?"
"Not directly."
"Money doesn't care about directly."
"Derek."
"How much?"
Richard didn't answer.
Derek turned to my mother.
"Linda?"
She whispered, "Most of it."
He looked sick.
For years I had hated him for the car, the room, the college checks, the smug certainty that he deserved what I did not.
Watching that certainty collapse in front of me brought no pleasure at all.
He sat across from me.
"I didn't know."
I believed him.
That complicated everything.
My mother reached for my hand.
I moved mine away before she could touch me.
She stopped.
"Thea, I can explain why I made those decisions."
"I think you already did."
"No."
Her voice sharpened with sudden desperation.
"You think I chose him over you because I didn't care about you."
I looked at Richard.
"Didn't you?"
Her face crumpled.
Richard stepped forward.
"Linda, enough."
She stood so fast the chair legs scraped against the floor.
"No, not enough."
He froze.
She pointed at him.
"You told me the policy would be tied up for years if I didn't settle."
May you like
Richard said nothing.
"You told me Patricia was trying to take Thea away."
