Chương 9
"I know."
I waited for a defense.
None came.
Then he said, "I wanted you to stop looking at me like that."
My bruised cheek began to ache again.
"So you hit me."
"Yes."
"Thirty times."
"Yes."
The admission did not satisfy me.
It made me tired.
"Why didn't you stop?"
His voice cracked slightly.
"I couldn't."
I stiffened.
"That's not an excuse."
"I said I couldn't, not that I shouldn't have."
I heard him swallow.
"I kept thinking after the first one that I had already crossed the line."
"So you crossed it twenty-nine more times?"
"I don't know."
"That's not good enough."
"I know."
I stood and walked back into the kitchen.
The afternoon sun had shifted across the floor.
"Did Amber tell Daniel not to call police?"
Another pause.
"Yes."
"Did you know?"
"Later."
"Why?"
"She was scared."
"Of what?"
"Everything."
"That's vague."
"Of me getting arrested."
"Reasonable fear."
"Of the company finding out."
"Also reasonable."
"Of you using it."
I stopped.
"Using what?"
"The arrest."
"Against you?"
"Against both of us."
I felt anger returning.
"So she decided my injuries were less important than your reputation."
"She panicked."
"She's still panicking very efficiently through lawyers."
Brandon exhaled hard.
"That filing wasn't her idea."
"Yours."
"Mostly mine."
"Prepared three months ago."
He went quiet.
There it was.
I leaned one hand on the counter.
"What were you planning in November?"
"To get the house settled."
"By suing me?"
"If I had to."
"You never asked me to transfer it."
"I did."
"When?"
"Not directly."
I laughed without humor.
"Apparently clarity is hereditary."
He ignored that.
"I asked what would happen to the house if you remarried."
"I told you I wasn't remarrying."
"I asked what happened if you sold Redwood."
"I told you Redwood wasn't for sale."
"I asked whether the house was protected."
"And I said we'd deal with it."
"Exactly."
I closed my eyes.
He had been asking.
Badly.
I had been answering.
Badly.
That did not make us equally responsible for what followed, but it made the years behind us look less simple.
"Why the capacity threat?"
I asked.
He said nothing.
"Amber texted that you would prove I couldn't manage my affairs."
"She shouldn't have sent that."
"That wasn't my question."
"It was leverage."
The word came flat.
I nearly dropped the phone.
"Leverage."
"Yes."
"Against your father."
"I was trying to stop the sale."
"You didn't know about the sale when you started gathering information."
Silence.
I continued.
"Daniel told Martin you were asking about conservatorship months ago."
Brandon swore softly.
"So Daniel is talking to Martin now."
"Answer me."
"I was trying to understand options."
"Options for what?"
"If something happened."
"What was supposed to happen?"
"You're getting older."
"Everybody is."
"You forget things."
"So do you."
"You drove to Galveston for a meeting that was in Houston."
I felt heat climb my neck.
"The location changed."
"After you left?"
I stopped.
I had forgotten that part.
The meeting had changed two days earlier.
I had read the email.
Then driven toward the old location anyway.
"So one wrong drive makes me incompetent?"
"No."
"What else?"
"You called me twice last spring to ask when Mom's birthday was."
That struck harder.
"I did not."
"You did."
"No."
"I have the voicemail."
I stared at the countertop.
Elaine's birthday was May seventeenth.
I knew that.
I had known it for forty-two years.
"Play it."
"Not now."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not trying to prove anything to you on the phone."
"You're already using it in court."
"No."
I straightened.
"What?"
"We didn't include that."
"Why?"
He hesitated.
"Because I didn't think it proved what Amber thought it proved."
The answer unsettled me.
"Whose idea was the incapacity angle?"
"Amber pushed it."
"And you?"
"I let her."
"That's a coward's answer."
"Probably."
I walked to the window.
Ruth was outside across the street talking to a delivery driver.
The ordinary movement of the neighborhood seemed offensive.
"Did you believe I was losing capacity?"
"Sometimes I worried."
"Did you ask me?"
"No."
"Did you ask my doctor?"
"I couldn't."
"Did you ask Martin?"
"No."
"You asked Daniel about conservatorships."
"I was scared."
"Of losing me?"
He did not answer.
I knew then.
"Of losing the money."
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it?"
"No."
His voice rose.
"I was scared you'd make some huge decision because you were slipping and nobody could stop you."
"Like selling the house."
"Yes."
"After you assaulted me."
"The concern started before that."
"Convenient."
"I know how it sounds."
"It sounds like you built a legal weapon and waited for a reason to use it."
"I wasn't going to file."
"But you prepared it."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you told me in November you were simplifying your estate."
I gripped the windowsill.
"And?"
"And you wouldn't tell me what that meant."
"You are not entitled to know."
"I know that now."
"Now?"
"I was afraid you were cutting me out."
The confession came with none of the anger I expected.
Just shame.
"What did you think you were owed?"
"I don't know."
"Try."
He breathed out slowly.
"The house."
"Anything else?"
"Maybe part of Redwood."
"Why?"
"Because I spent my whole life hearing that everything you built was for family."
I looked at Elaine's letter on the table.
That sounded like me too.
I had said it at dinners, retirement speeches, after good quarters.
I had said it because I meant that work should protect the people you loved.
Brandon had apparently heard a future balance sheet.
"Family isn't an ownership structure," I said.
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Not as well as I should."
The sentence was too neat for him.
I distrusted it.
Before I could answer, my phone vibrated against my ear with an incoming call.
Martin.
I almost ignored it.
Then Brandon said, "Take it."
"How do you know someone is calling?"
"You stopped talking."
"I do that occasionally."
"Not when you're angry."
May you like
I switched calls.
Martin did not waste time.
