Chương 12
“It means I should have.”
I put down the pen.
“Dad.”
He looked at me.
“I don’t need you to turn this into a competition over who failed me most.”
His mouth tightened.
“I wasn’t.”
“You are.”
He stared at the statements for several seconds.
Then he nodded.
“Fair.”
My phone buzzed.
Caroline.
She had sent forty-three screenshots and seven forwarded emails.
The first message was from my mother in September of the previous year.
Claire is stirring things up again.
I would not panic, but I would be cautious.
Caroline had replied with a question mark.
My mother’s next message included Daniel’s name.
Apparently she has been asking around about Bellamy & Crane.
My stomach tightened.
I had not contacted Daniel until December.
Whatever my mother had heard in September had not come from me.
I scrolled farther.
There were dozens of messages.
Some warned Caroline that I was resentful.
Some described me as obsessive.
Some suggested I had always been competitive with her.
One said I had spent years blaming everyone else because I could not admit New York had been too much for me.
My father read over my shoulder.
“Jesus.”
I kept scrolling.
A message from February stopped me.
If Aaron ever learns how unstable she was after college, I’m not sure he’ll see her the same way.
My father sat back.
“That’s not protecting anyone.”
“No.”
Another message came a month later.
You need to understand that Claire has always been very good at appearing composed when she is not.
My skin went cold.
It was the same trick again.
Any evidence that I was functioning could be reinterpreted as evidence that I was hiding dysfunction well.
There was no way to win against a story built that way.
My father picked up his coffee.
It had gone cold.
He drank it anyway.
“Why would she keep doing this?”
I looked at the screen.
“Because if people believe I’m fine, they might believe me.”
He nodded slowly.
That answer seemed to hurt him.
Aaron came downstairs.
One look at our faces and he stopped.
“What did you find?”
I turned my phone toward him.
He read several messages in silence.
His jaw tightened.
“Did Caroline send all of these?”
“She says yes.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I believe she sent what she had.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
He nodded.
That was something I had learned from Daniel.
Truth did not become cleaner just because I wanted it to.
My father gathered the bank statements into one stack.
“I’m calling Martin.”
I looked at him.
“Not yet.”
His face hardened.
“He helped her.”
“We don’t know that.”
“He took the money.”
“We know his firm took the money.”
“It had his name on the door.”
“So does yours.”
He looked around my studio.
That landed.
I continued.
“If one of your employees did something wrong, that wouldn’t automatically mean you knew.”
He nodded reluctantly.
“I want the files first.”
“How do we get them?”
“I’m going to ask.”
Aaron leaned against the table.
“He may say they’re privileged.”
“They were supposedly representing me.”
“That could help.”
“Or make it stranger.”
My father rubbed his temple.
“You have a lawyer?”
“Not for this.”
Aaron looked at me.
“I know someone.”
I immediately shook my head.
“No friends doing favors.”
“She isn’t a friend.”
“Who?”
“Melissa Grant.”
The name was familiar.
“She handled the contract dispute for your company.”
“Yes.”
Aaron worked in commercial real estate and had spent enough time around attorneys to speak about them the way normal people spoke about dentists.
“She’s a litigator.”
“Would this be her area?”
“She’ll tell us if it isn’t.”
I looked at my father.
He seemed ready to drive to Martin Keller’s house and knock until someone answered.
“Call her.”
Aaron did.
Melissa returned the call twenty minutes later.
She listened without interrupting for nearly seven minutes.
That alone impressed me.
When I finished, she asked three questions.
Did I ever authorize my mother to act legally on my behalf?
No.
Did I recognize the signature?
As an imitation of mine.
Did I have the original forged internship letter?
Yes.
“Don’t confront anyone else,” she said.
My father looked personally offended by this advice.
Melissa continued.
“Preserve everything exactly as you received it.”
“What about the emails Caroline forwarded?”
“Keep the forwarded versions and ask her not to delete the originals.”
“Can we request Martin Keller’s file?”
“If he represented you, potentially.”
“If he thought he represented me.”
“That distinction matters.”
Her voice remained calm.
“So does the age of the matter and the nature of what occurred.”
I appreciated that she did not promise anything dramatic.
No instant lawsuit.
No police at my mother’s door.
No magical courtroom where nine years could be assigned a dollar value and returned to me cleanly.
“What should I do today?”
“Nothing impulsive.”
My father sighed audibly.
Melissa heard him.
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“Claire, I’ll send you an engagement letter and a list of documents to preserve.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t let anyone post about last night.”
I nearly laughed.
“I don’t control my relatives.”
“No one does.”
That was the closest she came to humor.
After the call ended, my father stared at his phone.
“So we wait.”
“We document.”
“That sounds like waiting with office supplies.”
“It is.”
Aaron smiled faintly.
My father did not.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was Susan.
Can we talk?
I stared at the message long enough that Aaron noticed.
“My mother?”
I nodded.
He straightened.
“Do you want me there?”
“No.”
He hesitated.
“I’m asking, not deciding.”
I looked at him.
“Good improvement.”
“I’m trainable.”
Susan arrived thirty minutes later carrying a white paper bag from a bakery down the street.
She placed it on the table.
“I brought muffins because I didn’t know what else to bring.”
My father stood.
“I’ll give you some privacy.”
Susan touched his arm before he could leave.
May you like
“You don’t have to.”
He looked at me.
