Chương 8
I stared at the phone in my hand as if Brandon had somehow changed its weight.
"You had a copy?"
"Mom gave it to me at the hospital."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why didn't you open yours?"
That answer landed cleanly enough that I had nothing ready for it.
He continued before I could recover.
"She told me not to show you mine unless you asked."
"I didn't know there was another copy."
"You didn't ask."
I bent down slowly and picked up my keys from the floor.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then I said, "Did she write the same thing?"
"Mostly."
"Mostly isn't the same."
"No."
"What was different?"
He hesitated.
"She wrote directly to me."
"About what?"
"About you."
I closed my eyes.
"Of course she did."
"She said I was starting to treat every favor like proof you didn't respect me."
My grip tightened around the keys.
Brandon's voice had lost its edge.
"She said I was angry at you for being useful."
I almost interrupted.
I did not.
"She said I wanted your help and hated myself every time I took it."
That sounded like Elaine.
Not the words exactly.
The cut of them.
"Anything else?"
"Yes."
He stopped.
I heard voices in the background.
A door opened and closed.
When he came back, his voice was quieter.
"She said if I ever started believing what you owned should belong to me because I was your son, I needed to get away from you for a while."
I leaned against the wall beside the door.
"Did she mention the house?"
"Yes."
My chest tightened.
"What did she say?"
"That you hadn't given it to me."
The room went very still.
I waited.
Brandon continued.
"She said you were probably going to convince yourself you had."
I almost laughed from the absurdity of it.
"That sounds backward."
"It wasn't."
"Explain."
"She said you'd act like it was mine when you wanted to feel generous and yours when you wanted control."
I looked toward the kitchen.
The unopened casserole sat on the counter beneath the clock.
My own version of Elaine's accusation had been gentler.
His had teeth.
"Did she tell you what to do?"
"She told me to ask you to put it in writing one way or the other."
"And you didn't."
"No."
"Why?"
He exhaled.
"Because I was afraid you'd say no."
That was the first completely honest thing he had said to me since the party.
Maybe longer.
I sat down on the bench by the door.
"You knew."
"Yes."
"You knew all these years that the house wasn't legally yours."
"I knew what the title said."
"That's the same thing."
"No, Dad."
My jaw tightened at the old argument returning.
He continued.
"I thought eventually you'd transfer it."
"Because I said you would own it someday."
"Yes."
"That's not ownership."
"To you, apparently."
His bitterness returned, but weaker now.
I said, "Did Amber know about your mother's letter?"
A pause.
"Yes."
"When?"
"After we moved in."
That bothered me more than it should have.
"So the two of you knew exactly how uncertain the arrangement was."
"We knew you hadn't transferred title."
"And you still spent one hundred twenty thousand dollars on a pool."
"Because you told me to make the place mine."
"I said make yourself comfortable."
"No."
His voice sharpened.
"You said, 'Stop asking permission for every damn thing, Brandon, it's your home.'"
I remembered saying something close to that beside the back patio while a contractor discussed drainage.
Not the context.
Not the exact date.
But the sentence sounded like me.
I rubbed my forehead.
"Home is not the same as property."
"Normal people don't distinguish every noun like a contract."
"Normal people don't assume a million-dollar asset because their father used a casual phrase."
He laughed once.
"There he is."
"What does that mean?"
"The businessman."
"I am a businessman."
"You're also my father."
"And you're also the man who hit me thirty times."
Silence.
The sentence stayed between us.
Brandon did not deny it this time.
He said, "I know."
The words were nearly inaudible.
I sat straighter.
"Say that again."
"I said I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"Because this morning you called it an argument."
"I was angry."
"You were angry last night."
"I know."
"You were angry when you told Daniel I started it."
His breathing stopped for half a second.
That was enough.
"Daniel called you."
"He did."
"What did he say?"
"The truth."
"His version."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Turn facts into versions when they become inconvenient."
He said nothing.
I continued.
"You hit me."
"I know."
"Thirty times."
"I don't know how many."
"I do."
"I know you counted."
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why did you keep going?"
The question escaped more quietly than I intended.
For the first time since the dinner, I wanted the answer more than I wanted leverage.
Brandon was silent so long I thought the call had dropped.
Then he said, "I don't know."
I almost rejected that.
Then I remembered the Knowledge of construction failures, how often the first answer was not an answer because people were ashamed of the mechanism.
"Try."
He exhaled.
"You looked at me like I was twelve."
"What does that mean?"
"Like I was stupid."
"I told you the house wasn't yours."
"In front of everybody."
"So?"
"So you always do that."
"Do what?"
"Correct me publicly."
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Images surfaced without permission.
Brandon at twenty-three, describing financing at a family barbecue while I interrupted to fix his terminology.
Brandon at twenty-seven, telling friends about his first profitable quarter while I pointed out that he was ignoring debt service.
Last Christmas, him explaining a deal while I said, "That's not how margin works."
Tiny moments I had considered education.
He had apparently stored them elsewhere.
"That doesn't justify what you did," I said.
"I know."
May you like
The answer came immediately.
"No explanation you give me changes that."
