Chapter 8 - The Rent Nobody Mentioned
Mom lived in a neat two-story house with white shutters. For years she'd told us the mortgage was paid and her retirement was comfortable. When I knocked that afternoon, she opened the door wearing her gardening gloves.
"I thought you weren't speaking to me," she said.
"I didn't come to fight. I came to ask about Grayline Consulting."
Her face changed before she could stop it.
"Who told you that name?"
"Why were loan proceeds from an account in my name transferred there?"
Mom walked back into the kitchen. "You should talk to your sister."
"I'm talking to you."
She pulled a chair from the table but didn't sit. "The house needed repairs. Brooke knew someone who could get a temporary loan."
"In my name?"
"She said you'd agreed."
"Did you ask me?"
Mom twisted her gloves until the fingers turned inside out. "I thought she had."
"You called me jealous. You called me dramatic. And all this time you were spending money that came from a loan I never took."
Her eyes filled. "I was scared of losing the house."
"So was I when I thought I was losing my baby yesterday. You didn't ask about that."
She dropped into the chair. It was the first time she'd looked old to me.
"The money went through Grayline because the contractor asked for it," she whispered.
"Who owns Grayline?"
"Brooke's boyfriend, Dylan."
I stared. Brooke had told us Dylan worked in commercial insurance and traveled constantly. I'd met him twice. Both times he had avoided looking me in the eye.
Mom reached for my wrist. "Please don't ruin your sister's life."
I stood in Mom's kitchen remembering birthday dinners, school projects, the way she could make a whole house smell like cinnamon rolls. None of those memories had been fake. That was what made the betrayal harder to name. A loving memory couldn't serve as an alibi for a present choice. I wished she could understand that I wasn't putting her on trial for being imperfect. I was asking her to stop making me pay for choices she knew were wrong.
I took my hand back. "Did she forge my name?"
May you like
Mom looked at the floor.
"I was there when she signed it," she said.
