Chương 5
Gertrude’s expression sharpened.
“You’re not sending my son out of his own home.”
Charlotte said, “Then take him with you.”
“Charlotte.”
Brandon’s voice broke slightly on her name.
That almost changed things.
Almost.
Then she pictured Skylar sitting on the floor with a cup of noodles while these four adults discussed ninety-two thousand dollars over crab legs.
She tightened her grip on the folder.
“You have ten minutes to pack what you need for tonight.”
Brandon looked at her for a long time.
Then he nodded once.
Gertrude started to protest.
He raised a hand.
“Mom, stop.”
It was the first time all evening he had spoken to her with authority.
Gertrude went silent.
Brandon walked toward the bedroom.
Hailey remained by the refrigerator.
Charlotte looked at her.
“Did Evan know they forged my signature?”
Hailey shook her head too fast.
“I don’t know.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Hailey’s eyes filled with shame rather than tears.
“No.”
Then she corrected herself.
“I don’t think so.”
Charlotte held her gaze.
Hailey lowered hers.
From the hallway came the soft scrape of a fork against a takeout box.
Charlotte looked toward Skylar’s closed bedroom door and made the first decision of the night that felt entirely clear.
Nobody was taking another piece of paper out of this house.
Charlotte carried the folder into the bedroom and locked it inside the small fireproof safe they kept on the top shelf of the closet.
Brandon had forgotten the combination twice in the past year, which suddenly made the safe feel like the most trustworthy thing in the house.
He stood at the dresser stuffing underwear, socks, and two shirts into an overnight bag without folding any of them.
Charlotte watched him for a moment from the doorway.
“You should take your medication.”
He stopped.
The bottle sat beside his phone charger.
“Right.”
He put it in the bag.
Neither of them mentioned that she had reminded him automatically.
Eight years of marriage apparently did not disappear just because part of it had been forged.
Brandon zipped the bag and looked around the room as though he had expected instructions from the furniture.
“I didn’t think it would get this far.”
Charlotte folded her arms.
“How far did you think it would get?”
“I thought I could fix it before you knew.”
“That sentence is worse than you think it is.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
He picked up his charger.
“I wasn’t trying to steal the house.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“That’s what you’re thinking.”
“What I’m thinking is that you were willing to gamble with something that wasn’t entirely yours.”
Brandon sat on the edge of the bed.
His shoulders dropped.
“I was scared.”
Charlotte almost answered that she had been scared plenty of times without signing his name.
She did not.
She was too tired for the clean satisfaction of a cruel sentence.
“Why didn’t you tell me when you lost the first forty?”
He rubbed his palms over his jeans.
“Because you’d already warned me about Evan.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“You were embarrassed.”
“Yeah.”
“So you hid eight thousand dollars from our savings.”
“I was replacing it.”
“With borrowed money.”
“I thought the company was going to turn.”
Charlotte leaned against the doorframe.
“What did the company actually do?”
“Freight brokerage.”
“That can mean almost anything.”
“They connected small carriers with shippers.”
“And Curtis?”
“He ran it.”
“Did you ever see an office?”
Brandon hesitated.
Charlotte’s stomach tightened again.
“You invested forty thousand dollars in a company whose office you never saw.”
“I saw their warehouse.”
“Whose warehouse?”
“I don’t know.”
She stared at him.
“It was in Riverside.”
“That was not my question.”
He stood too quickly.
“You think I’m an idiot.”
“I think I don’t know what you did.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
His face hardened.
For a second she recognized the Brandon who had argued with her over small bills and forgotten appointments and whether Skylar needed braces now or next year.
That version of him was easier to be angry with.
Then his expression collapsed.
“I wanted one thing that worked.”
Charlotte said nothing.
He looked toward the dresser.
“You have your job.”
“My job is not a lottery ticket.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that after doing things that suggest you don’t.”
He swallowed.
“I wanted something that wasn’t just me earning a paycheck and watching you earn more.”
There it was.
Not greed.
Not exactly.
Something smaller and sadder.
Charlotte had passed him in salary three years earlier.
They had celebrated with takeout and a bottle of cheap champagne because Brandon insisted expensive champagne tasted like furniture polish.
She had never considered the possibility that he had been counting the difference ever since.
“Was this about me?”
“No.”
He paused.
“Not just you.”
Charlotte looked at him carefully.
“Then who?”
He gave a tired laugh.
“Myself, mostly.”
The answer made her angrier than blame would have.
She stepped aside from the doorway.
“Go.”
Brandon lifted the bag.
“Can I say good night to Skylar?”
Charlotte hesitated.
“Yes.”
He stopped in the hallway outside Skylar’s room and knocked.
A few seconds later the door opened.
Skylar stood holding a strip of bacon.
She looked at the bag first.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“Just Grandma’s for tonight.”
“Why?”
Brandon glanced toward Charlotte.
Charlotte stayed where she was.
“Because your mom and I need some space.”
Skylar chewed slowly.
“Because of the papers?”
Brandon’s eyebrows lifted.
“What papers?”
“The ones everybody was fighting about.”
“We weren’t fighting.”
Skylar looked at him with the patient disappointment of a child hearing an obvious lie.
“Okay.”
Brandon crouched.
“Hey.”
She did not move closer.
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry dinner got weird.”
Skylar looked down at the bacon.
“It was weird before Mom came home.”
Brandon closed his mouth.
Charlotte felt the sentence hit him.
May you like
Skylar added, “Grandma told me the seafood was too expensive for kids, but Aunt Hailey ate it.”
From the kitchen, Hailey said, “I heard that.”
