Chương 5
My skin prickled.
Aunt Patty had never told me that.
"You told me if I lost the dispute, I could lose the house."
Richard's expression hardened.
"You could have."
"You told me Thea would get everything when she turned twenty-one anyway."
My breath stopped.
Richard's eyes shifted toward me.
There was the second lie.
I heard it before anyone said another word.
My mother saw my face.
"You didn't."
I shook my head.
Her lips parted.
"No."
"The account Aunt Patty gave me was Dad's separate savings."
Mom turned slowly toward Richard.
The color drained from her face.
"You told me the remainder was protected for her."
Richard said, "Linda."
"You told me."
His silence answered for him.
Derek stood.
"Dad."
Richard looked around the room as if searching for the version of events that might still obey him.
Then someone knocked on the conference room door.
None of us moved.
The knock came again.
A man's voice called through the wood.
"Richard, sorry, but the country club manager says the card for the final balance was declined."
Richard closed his eyes.
And my mother finally looked at him like she had never seen him before.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Richard opened the door.
"We'll take care of it."
The club manager stood outside holding a small black folder against his chest.
He was perhaps forty, with the careful expression of a man who had walked into enough private disasters to know when not to look curious.
"I'm sure you will, sir."
Richard stepped into the hallway and pulled the door nearly shut behind him.
We could still hear his voice.
"Run it again."
"We did."
"Then use the other card."
"There are two on file, Mr. Thornton."
A pause followed.
The manager said something too softly to make out.
Richard's reply came louder.
"Give me ten minutes."
Mom stared at the door.
Derek sank back into his chair.
I looked at the folded lease in front of her and wondered how many times that evening I was supposed to discover that the people who had treated money like proof of worth had almost none left.
The door opened.
Richard returned alone.
His face had recovered some color, but sweat darkened the hair at his temples.
"Minor issue."
Mom gave him a long look.
"How much?"
"What?"
"The balance."
"It's handled."
"How much?"
He tugged at one cuff.
"Linda."
"How much do we owe them?"
He looked toward Derek, as though expecting his son to rescue him from the question.
Derek stared at the tabletop.
Richard finally said, "A little over eighteen thousand."
My mother laughed.
It came out breathless.
"Eighteen thousand dollars?"
"The deposits were already paid."
"With what?"
Richard's face tightened.
"The business account."
Derek looked up.
"You paid for this party out of the company?"
"It's an anniversary event."
"That isn't an answer."
"We've hosted clients here before."
"You laid off seven people."
Richard slammed his palm against the table.
"Enough."
The sound startled all of us.
He immediately seemed to regret it.
His hand remained flat on the polished wood.
"I have spent fifteen years holding this family together while everybody else gets to stand around judging the decisions that made that possible."
Mom stared at his hand.
"With my first husband's money."
Richard lifted it.
"With money legally under your control."
"That isn't what I said."
"No, Linda, what you're doing now is pretending you were some helpless passenger."
He pointed at her.
"You signed every document."
She recoiled.
I watched something ugly and familiar unfold between them.
Richard was not entirely wrong.
That made it worse.
My mother had not been tricked into every choice she made.
She had made some of them willingly.
Maybe many.
Maybe most.
I did not want a cleaner version of the past simply because the dirty one hurt.
Mom seemed to understand that too.
She sat down again.
"I signed."
Her voice was small.
Richard's expression softened by a fraction.
She continued.
"I signed because I wanted the house."
He went still.
"I wanted the new life."
Her eyes stayed on the table.
"I wanted to stop waking up in a house where every room reminded me of Mark."
My father's name entered the room like another person.
Nobody moved.
She swallowed.
"I hated his coffee mug in the cabinet."
Her mouth twisted.
"I hated his shoes by the garage door."
She gave a short, embarrassed laugh.
"I even hated that stupid yellow raincoat he wouldn't throw away."
A picture rose in my mind before I could stop it.
Dad standing on our porch in that raincoat, one sleeve torn at the cuff, insisting it was still perfectly good.
Mom pressed her fingertips against her forehead.
"I packed everything because I couldn't breathe in that house."
I said nothing.
"I met Richard, and he knew how to do things."
She glanced at him.
"Phone calls, forms, contractors, banks."
Richard's jaw moved.
"He made decisions when I couldn't."
"And eventually," I said, "you let him make decisions about me."
She looked at me.
"Yes."
No excuse followed.
The honesty hurt more than another defense would have.
Derek rubbed both hands over his face.
"Can we please separate the crimes here?"
My mother blinked.
"What?"
"Not literal crimes."
He looked at Richard.
"Although at this point, who knows."
Richard's expression sharpened.
Derek ignored him.
"I'm trying to understand whether Dad stole money, whether Linda spent money that belonged to Thea, or whether everybody just made terrible legal decisions and lied about them afterward."
"That's not a small distinction," I said.
"Exactly."
For the first time all evening, Derek and I were on the same side of something.
It felt deeply unnatural.
Richard pulled out a chair but did not sit.
"The settlement funds were Linda's."
"Legally?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Morally?"
He looked at me.
"Life is not divided into tidy moral categories."
May you like
"No, but bank accounts usually are."
Derek made a sound that might have been a laugh.
