Chapter 18 - The Fire in the Garage
I hit the garage door with both fists.
“Mom! Stop!”
Vanessa ran to the side entrance.
Locked.
Inside, Mom looked at us through the window.
Her face was wet with tears.
She shook her head.
Then dropped the papers.
I expected them to fall into the metal can.
They didn’t.
She dropped them onto the table.
The flame was small, coming from a pile of photocopies already burning.
Vanessa found a spare key above the back light.
Of course she knew where it was.
We rushed inside.
Smoke filled the cold garage.
Mom stood perfectly still.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and sprayed the can.
White powder exploded across the concrete.
The flames died.
For several seconds, none of us spoke.
Then Mom said, “You think I’m a monster.”
I set down the extinguisher.
“I think you lie when the truth threatens the life you want people to see.”
She flinched.
Vanessa stared at the table.
“What were you burning?”
“Copies.”
“Of what?”
Mom looked at me.
“Letters.”
I stepped closer.
“What letters?”
She pushed one toward me.
It was old.
My grandfather’s handwriting.
Emily,
Your mother worries that treating you girls differently will create resentment. She believes Vanessa needs more visible support because Emily is strong.
I stopped reading.
Mom’s breath shook.
“Dad wrote me those after arguments.”
“Grandpa knew?”
“He noticed.”
I looked up.
“Then you knew.”
“Yes.”
“You knew we were being treated differently.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept doing it.”
Her face collapsed.
“I thought I was balancing you.”
I stared at her.
“Balancing me?”
“You had confidence. You had school. You had friends. You had your career. Vanessa fell apart over everything.”
Vanessa whispered, “Mom.”
Mom turned.
“I was scared for you.”
“So you gave me everything?”
“I gave you what I thought you needed.”
Vanessa’s voice rose.
“You made me helpless.”
Mom recoiled.
“That is not fair.”
“And you made Emily invisible.”
Mom’s face broke.
The room went quiet.
I looked at the scattered documents.
“Why take the trust papers?”
“Your father was going to let them destroy him.”
“No. He did that part himself.”
“I wanted time.”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know.”
There it was.
The first honest sentence I had heard from her in days.
I don’t know.
Mom sat in a folding chair.
Her shoulders shook.
“I didn’t know how to fix it.”
I crouched, picking up the pages that had not burned.
“You don’t fix this by erasing it.”
She looked at me.
“What happens now?”
“Everything gets reviewed.”
“Will your father go to jail?”
“I don’t know.”
She covered her mouth.
“What about me?”
I stood.
“I don’t know.”
She began to cry.
I felt sadness.
I felt anger.
I felt something that might one day become compassion.
But I did not rescue her.
Then Vanessa found an envelope beneath the papers.
“Emily.”
“What?”
She held it out.
My name was written across the front.
In Grandpa’s handwriting.
May you like
And underneath it were five words.
FOR HER TWENTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY ONLY.
