Chương 4
“Neither have I.”
A barista called someone's name from across the room.
Jake flinched.
I watched him wrap both hands around his coffee.
“Tell me exactly what Dad said.”
He stared at the table.
“He said you were going to help.”
“With tuition?”
“Yeah.”
“I never said that.”
“I know.”
“You knew before the sale?”
His jaw tightened.
“I knew he was going to sell the car.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
I leaned back.
“When?”
“The night before.”
“You knew and did nothing.”
“I didn't know he was going to fake your signature.”
“You knew he was taking my car.”
“He said you agreed.”
“You believed him?”
Jake rubbed his forehead.
“You always say yes.”
I laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
“That is your defense?”
“No.”
“Then what is?”
He looked up.
“I was scared.”
The anger in me faltered.
“Of Dad?”
Jake nodded.
“He told me if the tuition didn't get paid, I'd have to drop out.”
“You could have told me.”
“You would have paid it.”
I said nothing.
“You always do,” he added.
The coffee shop seemed suddenly too warm.
A woman at the next table was helping her little boy sound out words from a picture book.
The boy kept getting one word wrong.
She corrected him gently every time.
I wondered when correction had stopped being gentle in my family.
Jake reached into his backpack.
“I brought something.”
He pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
I recognized my father's handwriting before I could read it.
“What is that?”
“Dad gave it to me.”
I unfolded it.
It was a handwritten list of expenses.
Tuition.
Books.
Housing.
Transportation.
Then, near the bottom, another line.
“Corolla — $8,000.”
My fingers tightened around the paper.
“Why did he write this?”
“He was adding everything up.”
“For what?”
Jake shook his head.
“I don't know.”
“You do know something.”
“I know he said you owed the family.”
I looked at him.
“Owed?”
“Yeah.”
“For what?”
Jake swallowed.
“For everything.”
I folded the paper carefully.
“What does that mean?”
He stared out the window.
“He said he had been paying your expenses for years.”
I almost laughed again.
“He paid my expenses?”
“He said he did.”
“I paid rent from the time I was nineteen.”
“I know.”
“I paid my own tuition.”
“I know.”
“I bought my own car.”
“I know.”
Jake looked miserable.
“But he kept saying you wouldn't be where you were without him.”
That sentence hurt because it was familiar.
My father had said it before.
Usually when I was about to make a decision he disliked.
You wouldn't be where you are without this family.
You wouldn't have finished school without us.
You wouldn't have become a nurse without your mother and me.
The statements were never entirely false.
That was what made them effective.
My parents had fed me.
They had driven me to school.
They had stayed awake beside me when I had fevers as a child.
They had done ordinary parental things and then somehow turned those things into debts I could never finish paying.
I looked at Jake.
“Did he give you the money?”
“Some of it.”
“How much?”
“Four thousand.”
“And the rest?”
He hesitated.
“I don't know.”
“Jake.”
“He said he needed to cover something first.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
I watched his face.
He was hiding something.
Maybe not from me.
Maybe from himself.
“You need to find out.”
He nodded.
When we left the coffee shop, he stopped me on the sidewalk.
“Haley.”
I turned.
“I am sorry.”
I wanted to tell him that it was not enough.
I wanted to tell him he should have stood up for me years ago.
Instead, I said, “I believe you.”
His face changed.
Not relief.
Something closer to shame.
Then he walked away.
Rachel called me that evening.
“The dealership found another document.”
I sat upright on Tyler's couch.
“What document?”
“A financing authorization.”
“For the car?”
“No.”
She paused.
“Your father used the sale proceeds to pay something called a secured balance.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the dealership's payment trail does not match what he told you.”
I looked at the handwritten list Jake had given me.
“What balance?”
“I am still trying to verify it.”
“Can you tell me anything?”
“Only that the eight thousand dollars did not all go toward tuition.”
I closed my eyes.
The room was quiet except for the refrigerator humming in the kitchen.
“Rachel.”
“Yes?”
“Can my father sell my car if there was some kind of debt attached to it?”
“Not simply because he claims you owed him money.”
“So why would he do it?”
“That is what we need to establish.”
I looked down at my hands.
“I think he lied to Jake.”
“I suspect so.”
“No.”
I stood up.
“I think he lied to me too.”
The next morning, I went through my old bank statements.
I had saved digital copies because I was obsessive about paperwork.
My mother used to tease me about it.
“You keep receipts like you're preparing for a trial.”
I had laughed every time.
Now I opened years of records.
Rent payments.
Tuition transfers.
Car insurance.
Utilities.
Grocery purchases.
There were occasional transfers to my parents.
Some were small.
Some were not.
One transfer stood out.
Six thousand dollars.
Three years earlier.
The description simply said “loan.”
I did not remember lending my father six thousand dollars.
I searched my email.
Nothing.
Then I checked my old messages.
The conversation appeared after several minutes.
My father had written, “Need help for a few weeks.”
I had responded, “Okay.”
He promised to repay me.
He never had.
I scrolled farther.
There were two more transfers.
Four thousand.
Then three thousand five hundred.
All described as temporary help.
None had been repaid.
My chest felt tight.
That was almost fourteen thousand dollars.
Not counting everything else.
May you like
I called my bank and asked for archived statements.
The representative told me there might be a processing fee.
