Chương 6
A small sitting room.
A bathroom with a walk-in shower because Stephanie said she did not want me climbing stairs when I was eighty.
The contractor had started framing it.
Then Clinton lost a large commission, materials got expensive, and the project was “paused.”
A year later, half the unfinished space became storage.
Another section became a home gym nobody used.
I had moved into the sewing room because Stephanie said it would only be for a few months.
“What happened to the money for the suite?”
Neither of them spoke.
The doorbell rang.
All three of us turned toward the sound.
Clinton swore softly.
“That’ll be Brian.”
Stephanie looked at the clock on the microwave.
“He’s early.”
The doorbell rang again.
Clinton pointed at the envelope.
“We’ll talk after dinner.”
“No.”
“Margaret.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
I had never seen him so openly angry.
It made me strangely calm.
“If this notice concerns my money and my legal rights, we’re talking now.”
“Not with my boss standing on the porch.”
“Then send him home.”
“I can’t send him home.”
“You can.”
“Do you have any idea what tonight is about?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
He crossed the kitchen toward the front door, then turned back.
“This is a major promotion opportunity.”
Stephanie stepped toward me.
“Please, Mom.”
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because ten minutes earlier she had been blocking the doorway to stop me from calling a lawyer, and now she was asking for cooperation as though we were all participants in a family misunderstanding.
“Please what?”
“Just give us two hours.”
“Why?”
“So we can get through dinner.”
“And then?”
“We talk.”
“Truthfully?”
Her face tightened.
“Yes.”
I looked at Clinton.
He was watching me with the expression of a man trying to calculate whether a problem could be postponed.
“Two hours,” I said.
Stephanie’s shoulders dropped.
“But I’m not cooking.”
She blinked.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You were going to.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
From the doorway, Clinton said, “Steph.”
She looked at him.
He looked toward the trays on the counter.
Her mouth opened.
Then closed.
I picked up my bag.
“I’m going to Evelyn’s.”
“Mom, wait.”
“You have guests.”
“But we said two hours.”
“I’ll come back in two hours.”
“You can stay.”
“No.”
The doorbell rang a third time.
Clinton went to answer it.
I heard his voice change before the door was fully open.
Warm.
Confident.
Easy.
“Brian, hey, you’re early.”
A man laughed.
“Story of my life.”
I walked toward the side door.
Stephanie followed me into the laundry room.
“Mom.”
I stopped.
“What?”
She looked back toward the kitchen before lowering her voice.
“Don’t show that letter to Evelyn.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“It’s private.”
“It has my name on it.”
“I know.”
“So why can’t she see it?”
“She doesn’t need to be involved.”
“You involved her when you called her.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I was upset.”
“So am I.”
She pressed her fingertips against her forehead.
“You know how she is.”
“Yes.”
“She’ll make it bigger.”
“Maybe it is bigger.”
“Mom, please.”
There was real fear in her voice now.
Not irritation.
Not embarrassment.
Fear.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She looked toward the kitchen again.
“Nothing.”
“That answer isn’t good enough anymore.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Her eyes returned to mine.
“For once, can you just trust me?”
The question hurt more than the supermarket had.
Because I had trusted her.
With my grief.
With my money.
With the house Donald and I had built our life inside.
With the future I had not been able to imagine after he died.
“I did,” I said.
She went still.
I opened the door and stepped outside.
The air smelled like cut grass and charcoal from somebody’s grill two houses down.
Evelyn had left the Buick running.
When I got in, she took one look at my face and turned down the radio.
“Bad?”
“I don’t know.”
“That usually means bad.”
“That’s what I said.”
She put the car in reverse.
“Where are we going?”
“Your house.”
“Good.”
She glanced at the envelope in my hand.
“You find something?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Stephanie asked me not to.”
Evelyn pulled onto the street.
“That sounds promising.”
I looked out the window.
Children rode bicycles in the cul-de-sac.
A man in a Georgia Bulldogs shirt dragged a trash bin back toward his garage.
Somebody had put a sprinkler too close to the sidewalk, and it sprayed the pavement every twelve seconds.
Ordinary things.
I found myself staring at them because ordinary things were easier than the envelope in my lap.
Evelyn waited until we reached the stoplight.
“Margaret.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
I turned toward her.
She kept her eyes on the road.
“I’m nosy, not entitled.”
That nearly made me cry.
I swallowed.
“There’s an agreement.”
Her hands tightened slightly on the wheel.
“The one Clinton said didn’t exist?”
“Stephanie said it didn’t exist.”
“Ah.”
“The letter says there’s a balloon payment due.”
“How much?”
“Forty-seven thousand six hundred.”
Evelyn missed the light changing.
The car behind us honked.
She waved apologetically and drove through.
“Forty-seven thousand six hundred dollars for what?”
“I don’t know.”
“And your name is on it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you owe it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Stephanie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Clinton?”
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
“That’s a lot of not knowing for nearly fifty grand.”
“Yes.”
At Evelyn’s house, she made coffee even though it was after five and both of us knew she would complain about being awake at midnight.
I spread the papers across her dining table.
She brought over reading glasses and a yellow legal pad.
“I am not a lawyer,” she announced.
“I know.”
“I was a middle-school secretary for thirty-two years.”
“I know that too.”
“But I have seen people lie about paperwork.”
May you like
“That may be the most relevant qualification either of us has.”
She smiled.
