Chương 3
Charlotte stared at her.
Brandon shut his eyes.
Hailey whispered, “Mom, maybe don’t.”
Gertrude turned on her daughter.
“You stay out of this.”
“I’ve been sitting here the whole time.”
“That doesn’t make it your business.”
Hailey gave a small incredulous laugh.
“It apparently made seafood my business.”
The ridiculousness of the sentence cracked something in the room without easing anything.
Charlotte moved around Gertrude.
This time Gertrude let her pass.
Skylar stood at the kitchen counter tapping at Charlotte’s phone with serious concentration.
“Do chocolate-chip pancakes count as dinner?” she asked.
“Tonight they do.”
“Can I get bacon?”
“Yes.”
“Orange juice?”
“Yes.”
Skylar looked over her shoulder.
“You’re saying yes too fast.”
Charlotte almost laughed.
Instead she rested one hand briefly against the counter because her knees felt strangely unreliable.
“Get the orange juice.”
Skylar returned to the order.
Charlotte opened a kitchen drawer and took out the manila folder where they kept appliance warranties, school forms, and miscellaneous papers nobody knew where else to put.
She slid the documents inside.
Brandon appeared at the edge of the kitchen.
“Can we talk without Mom?”
Gertrude called from the dining room, “I can hear you.”
Charlotte closed the folder.
“That seems like a good reason to go somewhere else.”
Brandon lowered his voice.
“Please don’t leave with those.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to explain before you start calling people.”
“Which people are you worried about?”
His eyes flicked toward Skylar.
Charlotte saw the answer he did not want to give in front of their daughter.
She handed Skylar twenty dollars from her wallet.
“When the food comes, tip the driver.”
“I already put a tip on the app.”
“Then keep it.”
“For what?”
“For being eleven.”
Skylar studied her face.
“You’re mad.”
“Yes.”
“At Dad?”
Charlotte glanced toward Brandon.
“Yes.”
Skylar nodded as though this confirmed something she had already suspected.
“Okay.”
She slipped the money into the pocket of her pajama top.
Charlotte took Brandon into the small laundry room off the kitchen and pulled the door almost closed.
The dryer smelled faintly of fabric softener, and a basket of clean towels sat unfolded on top of it.
Brandon leaned against the washing machine.
Charlotte remained standing.
“How much?”
He rubbed his jaw.
“Depends what you mean.”
“That is not a promising start.”
“I had a business problem.”
“You don’t own a business.”
“I invested in one.”
Charlotte said nothing.
Brandon looked at the floor.
“A logistics company.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
She searched his face for some indication that she had misunderstood the ordinary words.
“What logistics company?”
“It was a small operation.”
“Was?”
“It still exists.”
“Then why did you say was?”
He pushed away from the machine.
“Because the original arrangement changed.”
Charlotte felt tired again, suddenly and physically.
The anger had been easier.
“How much did you invest?”
“Forty.”
“Forty what?”
His silence stretched one beat too long.
“Thousand?”
Brandon nodded.
Charlotte stared at the detergent bottle behind him.
It had a little blue cap turned upside down on the shelf.
Forty thousand dollars was not an abstract number in their house.
Forty thousand dollars was the emergency fund they had spent six years building.
It was part of Skylar’s college savings.
It was the difference between surviving a job loss and panicking through one.
“From where?”
“Different places.”
“Brandon.”
“Some was mine.”
“You mean your retirement account?”
“Partly.”
Charlotte closed her eyes.
“How much came from our joint savings?”
“Eight.”
“Eight thousand?”
“Yes.”
“You told me the roof estimate and the dental bill wiped that out.”
“I was going to replace it.”
“With what?”
“The return.”
“What return?”
He looked toward the laundry-room door.
“The investment was supposed to pay out quarterly.”
“Was this Hailey’s boyfriend’s thing?”
Brandon’s face changed.
That was another answer.
Charlotte leaned back against the door.
“Evan.”
“He introduced me to someone.”
“Evan can barely organize his own car insurance.”
“It wasn’t Evan’s company.”
“Who owned it?”
“A guy named Curtis Vane.”
Charlotte repeated the name once, softly.
She had never heard it before.
“How did forty thousand become paperwork on our house?”
Brandon folded his arms.
The gesture looked defensive even before he spoke.
“The company had cash-flow issues.”
“So you put in more.”
“I covered a bridge.”
“With what money?”
“A line.”
“What line?”
He exhaled through his nose.
“Private lending.”
Charlotte stared at him.
“No.”
“It was short term.”
“No.”
“It was supposed to be sixty days.”
“How much?”
“Charlotte.”
“How much?”
“Seventy-five.”
Her mouth went dry.
“Thousand?”
He nodded.
The dryer clicked as cooling metal contracted inside it.
Charlotte looked at the folded towels because if she looked at Brandon she might say something she could never pull back.
“Where did you get seventy-five thousand dollars?”
“The loan was secured.”
She touched the manila folder under her arm.
“With our house.”
“Not exactly.”
She laughed once.
It sounded wrong in the small room.
“What does not exactly mean?”
“It was supposed to be secured by my interest.”
“We own the house jointly.”
“I know.”
“So they needed me.”
“Yes.”
The answer came so quietly she almost missed it.
Charlotte lifted her eyes.
“And I said no?”
Brandon swallowed.
“You were never asked.”
For several seconds neither of them moved.
The laundry room was barely large enough for two adults, yet the distance between them felt enormous.
“You forged my signature before anyone could ask me.”
“I didn’t forge it.”
Charlotte looked at the folder.
“Then who did?”
Brandon pressed his fingertips against his forehead.
“Mom signed.”
Charlotte stared at him.
The words refused to fit together.
“Your mother signed my name.”
“She practiced from the refinance papers.”
He said it with the miserable flatness of somebody who had repeated the truth privately until it no longer sounded insane.
Charlotte pushed the laundry-room door open.
Gertrude was already standing in the kitchen.
She must have come closer while they talked.
Skylar was gone.
“Where is she?”
“In her room,” Gertrude said.
May you like
Charlotte glanced toward the hallway.
“Did you send her there?”
