Chapter 8: Thirty Days
The next morning, I called in late to work and drove back to the house.
Lauren was already there.
Her car was in the drive, and when I let myself in with the spare key I'd had for fifteen years, I could smell coffee and hear her and Dererick talking in the kitchen in the low, specific register of people working through logistics rather than emotions.
Dad was at the table.
He had the folder open in front of him and was writing something in a legal pad.
He looked up when I came in.
His eyes were red at the rims.
He had not, I suspected, slept.
"Jenna," he said.
"Dad."
A pause.
I sat down across from him.
Lauren set a mug in front of me without asking.
"I want to tell you something," Dad said.
"And I need you to let me finish before you say anything."
I nodded.
He looked at the legal pad.
"When the investment failed, I was ashamed.
That's the most accurate word.
I had put in money that wasn't — it wasn't all mine to put in.
Some of it was money your mother and I had set aside for — for different things.
Things I told her I still had.
And I didn't." He paused.
"Carol found me through the investment group, like I said.
But I let her in because she was the only person who knew what I'd done and offered to help me hide it.
Even from your mother."
I looked at him.
"Mom didn't know about the investment money?"
"Not the full amount.
No."
I let that sit for a moment.
"What was the money set aside for?"
He set his pen down.
"Part of it was your grandmother's money.
After she passed.
It was supposed to be split between you and Lauren eventually.
I borrowed against it.
I told myself I'd replace it before it mattered."
The mug was warm between my hands.
I didn't drink from it.
"Does Lauren know this part?" I asked.
"I told her this morning."
"How did she take it?"
He made a small sound that wasn't quite a laugh.
"She left the room for a few minutes.
Then she came back and sat down and told me we needed to deal with the mortgage first."
That was Lauren.
That was exactly Lauren, the version of her I'd forgotten existed beneath the polished performance of last night.
Dererick came in from the hallway.
"Marcus Webb is available this afternoon.
He can take an initial consultation by phone." He looked at my father.
"He's going to want everything in the folder and the recording from last night."
"All right," Dad said.
"He'll also want to contact the lender directly.
There's a process for disputing payments that were intercepted before reaching them — it's not guaranteed, but it establishes a paper trail that matters for the foreclosure challenge."
"And Carol?" I asked.
"If what's in the folder is what I think it is, she's looking at wire fraud charges at minimum.
Possibly elder financial exploitation — there are specific statutes in this state." Dererick sat.
"But that's Marcus's area, not mine.
I can get you to the right door.
I can't walk through it for you."
Dad nodded slowly.
He looked at the folder.
Then at me.
"I know this doesn't fix what happened at dinner," he said.
"What Lauren said.
What your mother said.
What we let happen." He stopped.
"What we arranged to happen."
"No," I said.
"It doesn't."
"I don't know how to — I'm not sure what to say."
"Then don't say anything yet." I wrapped both hands around the mug.
"Get through the next thirty days.
Work with Dererick's contact.
Give Marcus Webb everything.
And after the house is dealt with and Carol is dealt with, then we'll talk about the rest of it."
"Is there a rest of it?" he asked.
"For you and me?"
It was a genuine question.
The kind my father almost never asked — open, unprotected, without a prepared answer underneath it.
"I don't know yet," I said honestly.
He nodded.
That was enough for now.
Mom appeared in the doorway.
She had dressed carefully, the way she always did, every day, regardless of circumstances.
She looked at me across the kitchen.
"Jenna," she said.
"I've been thinking about what you asked me last night.
In the kitchen."
"All right."
"You asked if any of it was real.
The dinners.
The comparisons." She came to the table and sat down, not at the head, but in the middle, like everyone else.
"Some of it was habit I didn't examine closely enough.
And some of it was — yes.
Management.
I am not proud of that."
It was not an apology exactly.
My mother didn't do apologies the way other people did.
She did acknowledgments.
Carefully worded, slightly tilted toward self-preservation, but genuine at their core.
"Lauren already called," Mom said.
"She's coming back this afternoon."
"I know," I said.
"She texted me."
"She's very angry."
"Yes."
Mom looked at her hands.
"More at me than at your father, I think."
"Probably."
"Because she trusted me."
"Yes."
A long pause.
"And you?" she asked.
"Were you ever angry at me?
Before last night?"
I thought about every dinner.
Every small comment.
Every careful word placed to remind me of what I lacked and what Lauren had.
Every year of learning to take up less space in a room my mother controlled.
"All the time," I said.
"I just got tired of it eventually."
She absorbed that without flinching.
That was something, at least.
"We're going to call Marcus Webb this afternoon," I said.
"And we're going to do what Dererick says.
All of it.
No managing, no partial information, no waiting to see which version of events lands best." I looked at her.
"If you want any chance of keeping this house, that's how it has to go."
She straightened slightly.
Old habit.
Then she let her shoulders drop.
"All right," she said.
May you like
Outside, the rain from the night before had cleared.
The backyard, through the kitchen window, was wet and bright and very still.
