Chương 4
Nathan looked up.
“Who?”
Carol’s expression hardened.
“That is not the important part.”
“It matters if people are talking.”
“They are talking.”
He flinched.
Carol softened slightly.
“That’s what happens when private family problems are brought into a sanctuary full of people.”
She opened the door.
“Some people will believe Diane because they love her.”
Nathan’s shoulders tensed.
“Some will believe Emily because they saw what happened.”
She looked between us.
“And most will believe whatever lets them stay comfortable.”
After she left, Nathan and I stood in the hallway listening to the elevator doors close.
Neither of us moved until the apartment next door opened and our neighbor, Mr. Lopez, shuffled out carrying a bag of trash.
He looked at us.
“You two okay?”
“Yes,” Nathan said.
“No,” I said at the same time.
Mr. Lopez stared for one awkward second.
Then he raised the trash bag.
“I’m going to pretend I asked about the weather.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
He smiled and headed toward the elevator.
Nathan did not.
When we went back inside, he locked the door.
I watched him turn the deadbolt.
“Did your mother ever use the spare key you gave her?”
“I didn’t give it to her.”
“She copied it.”
“I know.”
“Does she still have it?”
He looked at the lock.
“I assume.”
I went to the junk drawer and pulled out the property manager’s number from beneath three takeout menus and a dead battery.
Nathan watched me.
“What are you doing?”
“Changing the lock.”
“She’s not going to come over and break in.”
“Maybe not.”
“Emily.”
I held up the paper.
“This isn’t about predicting what she’ll do.”
He crossed his arms.
“Then what is it about?”
“Knowing she can’t.”
His expression tightened.
“It’s Sunday.”
“I can leave a message.”
“You really think we need to do that today?”
I looked at him.
His shoulders dropped before I said anything.
“Okay.”
He sank onto the couch.
“Okay.”
I called the property manager and left a voicemail requesting a lock change because an unauthorized copy of our key existed.
I did not say mother-in-law.
I did not say church.
I did not explain the red marks on my wrist.
The ordinary language of the message steadied me.
Unauthorized copy.
Security concern.
Please call Monday morning.
When I hung up, Nathan was staring at his phone.
“You called her?”
“No.”
He held the screen toward me.
His mother had sent fourteen messages.
I did not read all of them.
The first said she had never been so humiliated in her life.
The third said Pastor Reed had always disliked strong women.
The fifth asked whether I was happy now.
The eighth said Nathan’s father would have been ashamed.
The eleventh said she had done everything for her children and apparently that counted for nothing.
The final message was different.
I read it twice.
Fine.
If Emily wants independence so badly, she can explain why you asked me for money last month.
I looked at Nathan.
He did not look away.
The distance between us was less than six feet, but something opened there anyway.
May you like
“What money?” I asked.
Nathan stared at the message as if the words might rearrange themselves into something harmless.“Three thousand dollars.”The number came out so quietly that I almost asked him to repeat it.Instead, I sat down.The couch cushion dipped beneath me, and the baby shifted low in my abdomen.“Three thousand dollars for what?”“The deposit.”“What deposit?”“Our new place.”I looked toward the stack of moving boxes against the dining room wall.Most of them were labeled in my handwriting.KITCHEN.BOOKS.BABY.The apartment we were moving into had been my idea and Nathan’s agreement, or at least that was how I had understood it.“We had the deposit.”“We had most of it.”“No.”I shook my head.“We had all of it.”“We did before the hospital estimate.”I felt my pulse in my wrist where Diane’s fingers had been.“We paid the hospital nothing last month.”“I moved money.”“From where?”He looked down.“Our savings.”The room narrowed.“How much?”“Emily.”“How much did you move?”“Twenty-four hundred.”I pressed my palm against the top of my stomach.The baby had gone still.“What did you spend twenty-four hundred dollars on?”“I didn’t spend it.”“That’s not what I asked.”Nathan stood, paced three steps, then stopped because there was nowhere useful to go.“I paid down the credit card.”I stared at him.“We pay the credit card every month.”“Not all of it.”A strange little sound escaped me.It was almost a laugh.“We don’t carry a balance.”“We do now.”“How much?”“About seven thousand.”For several seconds, I heard nothing except someone’s television through the wall.A laugh track rose and disappeared.“When?”“It built up.”“When, Nathan?”“Since fall.”“On what?”“Stuff.”I waited.He rubbed the back of his neck.“Car repairs.”“We paid for the brakes from checking.”“There was other work.”“What other work?”“Tires.”I closed my eyes.“We bought tires in September.”“I know.”“With my card.”“I know.”I opened my eyes.He looked trapped.That frightened me more than the number.“What did you buy?”He sat in the chair across from me.“Some of it was normal expenses.”“Some.”“Groceries when checking was low.”“When was checking low?”“Emily, I’m telling you.”“No, you’re giving me nouns.”He flinched.“Groceries.”“Gas.”“Car repairs.”“Those are things that happen in everybody’s life.”“I know.”“I am asking what happened in ours.”He swallowed.“I helped Mom.”For a moment, I thought I had misunderstood.“You gave your mother money?”“Not exactly.”“What does not exactly mean?”“I put some things on my card.”“What things?”“Her property taxes were short.”My mouth went dry.“How short?”“About eighteen hundred.”The air left my lungs slowly.“And?”“She had an emergency plumbing repair.”“How much?”“Six hundred and something.”“And?”“She needed a new water heater.”I stood up because sitting made me feel cornered.“You spent our money maintaining the house she wanted us to move into.”“It wasn’t like that.”“Wasn’t it?”“She was going to pay me back.”“Did she?”He said nothing.I walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.I had no reason to open it.There were eggs, mustard, half a carton of milk, and a bowl covered with plastic wrap.I closed it again.“When were you going to tell me?”“I was trying to fix it before you needed to know.”That sentence hurt in a way the others had not.“Before I needed to know.”“You know what I mean.”“I don’t think I do.”“The balance was temporary.”“Our savings weren’t.”“I was replacing it.”“With your mother’s three thousand dollars.”He looked at me.“Partly.”“So you gave her money, then borrowed money back from her.”“It wasn’t borrowing back.”“What was it?”“She offered.”“Because you told her we were short.”“I told her we had expenses.”“And she gave you three thousand dollars.”“Yes.”“Did she know it was for the deposit?”His hesitation answered first.“Yes.”I leaned both hands against the counter.The apartment suddenly felt full of Diane.Her copied key.Her money.Her knowledge of our bills.Her knowledge of my fears.Her plans for our baby.Even the new home I had thought represented distance from her had partly been purchased with her check.“Was there a condition?”“No.”“Nathan.”“There was no written condition.”I stared at him.He looked away.“What did she say?”“She said if we decided the new place was too expensive, we always had her house.”I nodded once.“And what did you say?”“I said we’d figure it out.”“What did she hear?”He rubbed his face.“I don’t know.”“Yes, you do.”He dropped his hands.“She probably thought I was reconsidering.”The room stayed quiet.I picked up his phone.He did not stop me.The messages from Diane were still open.I scrolled upward.There were dozens from that morning.Above them were older messages.I stopped.“Can I read these?”Nathan’s face tightened.Then he nodded.I hated that I had asked.I hated more that I needed to.The first thing I found was a message from Diane sent four weeks earlier.I can cover the deposit, sweetheart.No reason to put Emily under more stress right now.Nathan had replied, I appreciate it.Diane answered, You don’t have to tell her every little thing while she’s pregnant.My thumb froze.Nathan stood.“I should’ve shut that down.”“You answered with a heart.”“I know.”The next message was worse because it looked ordinary.Diane had asked whether I was still refusing the downstairs bedroom.Nathan wrote, She wants the baby in our room at first.Diane answered, That makes no sense if you’re both exhausted.Let me handle that after she delivers.Nathan had not replied.I scrolled farther.Another thread.Diane asked whether I had chosen a pediatrician.Nathan said we were deciding.She sent the name of the doctor Nathan had seen as a child and wrote, At least give the baby one thing from our side.I looked up.“What does that mean?”“I don’t know.”“Did you ask?”“No.”“Why?”“Because sometimes ignoring her is easier.”I handed him the phone.“For you.”He took it.I could see him searching for something to say.“Emily, none of this means I agreed with her.”“You didn’t have to.”“What?”“You kept the door open.”He frowned.“I told her we weren’t moving in.”“Eventually.”“That was our decision.”“And before that?”He looked toward the boxes.I lowered my voice.“How many times did she think there was still a chance because you couldn’t stand to tell her no?”His lips parted.Nothing came out.I walked to the bedroom.Nathan followed me as far as the doorway.I pulled a small overnight bag from the closet.His face changed.“Where are you going?”“I don’t know yet.”“Emily, please don’t do this.”I turned.“Do what?”“Leave.”“I need somewhere I can think.”“You can think here.”“With you asking me every thirty seconds whether we’re okay?”“I won’t.”“You already are.”He stepped backward.That stopped me for a moment.Nathan was not blocking the door.He was not shouting.He looked frightened and embarrassed and painfully familiar.Part of me wanted him to become cruel because cruelty would have simplified everything.Instead, he stood there holding his mother’s phone messages and looking like a man who had finally found the bill for years of avoiding discomfort.“I’m not leaving you,” I said.His eyes closed briefly.“I don’t know what I’m doing yet.”“Okay.”“I’m not going to your mother’s.”“I know.”“I don’t want her coming here.”“She won’t.”“You can’t promise that.”He looked at the deadbolt.“No.”I packed underwear, two shirts, leggings, prenatal vitamins, my toothbrush, and the ugly gray sweatshirt Nathan always complained made me look like a tired college student.He watched until I reached for my laptop.“Are you going to your sister’s?”“Probably.”My sister Rachel lived forty minutes away and had a guest room full of exercise equipment she never used.Nathan nodded.“Do you want me to call her?”“No.”“Right.”He moved aside.I stopped in front of him.“What else?”His brow furrowed.“What?”“What else haven’t you told me?”“Nothing.”I waited.His answer had been too fast.He saw me notice.“There is one thing.”I put the bag down.His phone started vibrating again.Neither of us looked at it.“What thing?”“The lease.”A cold pressure moved through my chest.“What about the lease?”“I was worried we wouldn’t qualify with the card balance.”“We already qualified.”“Because they used both incomes.”“Yes.”“And the savings statement.”I waited.Nathan’s eyes moved to the floor.“The statement showed the money Mom transferred.”I could not understand why that mattered.Then I did.“You deposited her money before we applied.”“Yes.”“So when the property manager saw our savings balance—”“It included the three thousand.”I pressed my lips together.“Would we have qualified without it?”“I think so.”“That is not the same thing as yes.”“I don’t know.”The phone stopped vibrating.A few seconds later, someone knocked on the apartment door.Nathan and I froze.Three slow knocks.Then Diane’s voice came through the hallway.“Nathan?”He looked at me.I felt the muscles in my back tighten.Another knock.“Nathan, I know you’re home.”He took one step toward the hallway.I caught his sleeve.He stopped.“What are you going to do?”“Tell her to leave.”“From here.”He looked confused.“Don’t open the door.”Diane knocked again.“This has gone far enough.”Nathan’s face hardened.He walked into the living room but stayed several feet from the door.“Mom, go home.”Silence.Then, “I need to speak to you privately.”“No.”“I’m your mother.”“I know.”“This is family business.”Nathan looked at me.“It became church business this morning.”Diane’s voice sharpened.“Emily is standing there, isn’t she?”I said nothing.Nathan did too.“I know what she’s doing,” Diane continued.“She is making you prove yourself.”His shoulders rose.I expected him to defend me.Instead, he said, “You need to leave.”“I brought the check.”Nathan’s expression changed.“What check?”“The rest of the money you need.”I looked at him.He shook his head immediately.“I didn’t ask her.”Diane must have heard his voice through the door.“You said the hospital expenses were worse than expected.”“I said the estimate was high.”“And you said the apartment was stretching you.”“That was before we signed.”“I can help.”“No.”Another pause.“Is she making you say that?”Nathan’s jaw tightened.“No.”“Then open the door and look at me.”He stared at the deadbolt.His hand twitched once at his side.I saw the whole old pattern pass across his face.A request disguised as proof of love.A refusal transformed into betrayal.A door made morally heavier than a door had any right to be.Nathan stepped closer.For one terrifying second, I thought he would unlock it.Instead, he pressed his palm flat against the wood.“Mom, I love you.”Diane said nothing.“But you need to go.”Her answer came softer.“So this is what she wanted.”Nathan closed his eyes.I watched his shoulders fall.When he spoke again, the words were not forceful.They were tired.“No, Mom.”He removed his hand from the door.“This is what I kept making her ask for.”The hallway stayed silent long enough that I wondered whether Diane had walked away.Then something slid beneath the door.A folded check stopped against Nathan’s shoe.He stared down at it.Diane’s footsteps moved toward the elevator.Nathan bent and picked up the check.The amount was five thousand dollars.The memo line said FOR MY GRANDCHILD.He held it by one corner.“What do I do with this?”I picked up my overnight bag.“You decide.”His face lifted.“Aren’t we deciding together?”“Not this one.”I opened the door after checking the peephole.The hallway was empty.Nathan followed me out.I turned before he could reach the elevator.“I need you to make one decision about your mother without asking me to carry half the blame for it.”He looked at the check.The elevator arrived with a soft ding.I stepped inside.Nathan remained in the hallway.Just before the doors closed, he tore the check once down the middle.Then again.And for the first time that day, I saw him do something his mother would hate without looking at me afterward to see whether I approved.
