Chương 9
When the call ended, I sent him the country club address.
I was still looking at the screen when the terrace door opened behind me.
I expected Derek.
It was my mother.
She had taken off her shoes.
She carried them by the straps in one hand, and without the diamonds, heels, and ballroom smile, she looked strangely small.
She stopped several feet away.
"I didn't know where else to go."
I almost said that had never stopped her before.
The cruelty was ready.
I let it die.
She came to the railing but did not stand too close.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
A sprinkler rotated somewhere in the darkness.
Finally, she said, "Your father hated parties like this."
I looked at her.
She smiled faintly.
"He would find the dog at every wedding and spend half the reception outside with it."
I knew that.
I had forgotten.
A memory surfaced of Dad in a suit, crouched beside someone's golden retriever while my mother stood in a reception hall doorway telling him dinner was being served.
"He hated ties too," I said.
"He hated everything that required dry cleaning."
I almost smiled.
Then the silence returned.
Mom put her shoes on the ground.
"I spent a lot of years being angry at him."
I looked ahead.
"Why?"
"Because he died."
The answer was so simple I didn't know what to do with it.
She rubbed her arms against the cold.
"I know how terrible that sounds."
"It doesn't."
"I was furious."
Her voice trembled.
"He got on a plane for a two-day trip, and then everybody came to my house with casseroles and forms and opinions, and somehow I was supposed to understand insurance and grief and you and the mortgage and what to do with his shirts."
She wiped under one eye.
"And you looked exactly like him when you were angry."
I turned toward her.
She gave me a broken little smile.
"That wasn't your fault."
"No."
"I know."
Her face tightened.
"But I think sometimes I punished you for surviving him."
The honesty cut deeper than any excuse she had given me.
I looked away.
"I needed you."
"I know."
"You had one job."
"I know."
"You were my mother."
Her shoulders folded.
"I know."
I hated that she wasn't fighting back.
I had spent years preparing arguments for a woman who would deny everything.
There is no satisfying victory when the other person finally agrees with the worst thing you've believed about them.
I pressed my palms against the stone again.
"Why invite me?"
Mom stared into the darkness.
"Because I saw your name."
"Where?"
"A magazine."
I turned.
She gave an embarrassed shrug.
"At the dentist."
Of all possible answers, that one felt absurdly real.
"There was a photograph of one of your projects."
"You recognized the name?"
"Your picture."
She swallowed.
"I almost dropped the magazine."
I waited.
"I went home and looked you up."
That surprised me.
"You knew."
"Not everything."
"But you knew I wasn't barely surviving."
She nodded.
The anger returned.
"Then why tell everyone I was?"
Her eyes dropped.
"Because I had already told them."
I stared at her.
"For years."
"Why?"
Her mouth twisted.
"Because the truth made me look like a terrible mother."
I let out a disbelieving breath.
"So you made me look like a failure instead."
"Yes."
No defense.
No explanation.
Just yes.
I looked at her and saw, for the first time, not the mother I had lost or the villain I had built, but a frightened, vain, selfish woman who had spent years protecting a story because the truth would require admitting what she had done.
That did not make it smaller.
It made it human.
And somehow that hurt more.
The terrace door opened again.
Derek stepped outside.
He had removed his bow tie and shoved it into one pocket.
"Sorry."
He held up his phone.
"But you both need to see this."
Mom stiffened.
"What?"
Derek looked at me.
"I called my accountant."
Richard's business accountant, I realized.
He shook his head.
"Not Dad's."
"My accountant."
He came closer.
"I asked him to pull the records from the trust account my grandmother left me."
My mother frowned.
"What does that have to do with this?"
Derek's face was pale.
"Because Dad borrowed against it three years ago."
Mom stared.
Derek turned the phone toward us.
On the screen was a series of transfers.
One name repeated beside them.
Riverside Development Holdings.
The same failed project Richard had just claimed consumed the money set aside for me.
Derek swallowed.
"I think he used both of us."
And behind him, through the glass doors, Richard was gone.
For one stunned second, none of us moved.
Then Derek pushed through the terrace doors.
"His coat's gone."
My mother grabbed her shoes from the ground.
"Where would he go?"
Derek was already unlocking his phone.
"His car."
"No."
He caught her wrist before she could dial.
"Don't warn him."
Mom stared at him.
The sentence seemed to disturb her almost as much as Richard's disappearance.
"What do you mean, warn him?"
"I mean if he thinks we know about Riverside, maybe he goes home and cleans out whatever's there."
She pulled her hand free.
"He wouldn't."
Derek looked at her.
Neither of us said anything.
Her face changed.
"Right."
I picked up the navy box.
"My car is still here."
Derek shook his head.
"So is mine."
"Then we should go."
Mom looked between us.
"Go where?"
"Your house."
Her mouth tightened.
"No."
I stopped.
"What?"
"We are not barging into the house because we're panicking."
"Mom, he just disappeared."
"I know."
"With access to your accounts."
"I know."
"Possibly with records tied to money he moved from both of us."
Her jaw trembled.
"I know."
Derek stepped closer.
"Linda, why don't you want us there?"
May you like
She looked toward the dark windows of the ballroom.
For a moment, I thought she might lie.
