Chapter 4: The Phone Call She Didn't Know I Heard
Dinner was served at seven on the resort's open terrace.
I came down alone, in a simple blue dress, and took a table near the railing where the evening breeze came off the water.
The terrace was half full — couples, a few families, two older gentlemen at the bar nursing something amber-colored and speaking in low voices.
Mark and Amber arrived fifteen minutes later.
Amber had changed into a white dress that cost more than most people's monthly car payments.
She'd fixed her hair and her expression both.
She walked toward my table with her arms slightly open, like she was approaching a reunion instead of a consequence.
"Eleanor." She sat down across from me and placed her napkin across her lap.
"I'm glad you came down.
I was worried you might want to eat alone."
"I considered it," I said.
Mark sat beside her.
He looked like he hadn't slept, despite the fact that it had only been two hours.
He ordered water before the server had finished pulling out his chair.
Amber placed her hand over mine on the table.
"I owe you an apology.
A real one, not the rushed version from earlier."
I waited.
"What I said in the lobby was inexcusable.
I was stressed about the room, and I took it out on you, and that was wrong." She paused.
"I hope we can move past it.
We're family, and this week matters to all of us."
Her hand was still over mine.
Her eyes were direct and steady.
Someone watching from across the terrace would have seen a daughter-in-law making a heartfelt apology to a gracious older woman.
I slid my hand out from under hers and reached for my water glass.
"Tell me something, Amber," I said.
"Who were you on the phone with this afternoon?
On the terrace."
The steadiness in her eyes flickered.
One small beat.
Then it came back.
"A friend," she said.
"I needed to vent.
I was embarrassed, and I wanted to talk it through."
"Which friend?"
"Someone from home.
You don't know her."
Mark looked between us.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Probably nothing," I said, and opened my menu.
The dinner conversation stayed careful and surface-level after that.
Amber asked about the resort's history.
I answered briefly.
Mark talked about the children — they'd stayed home with Amber's mother for the week — and I asked their names and ages and let him talk because it was the first time all day he'd sounded like himself.
The food came.
The sun finished setting.
The terrace lights came up soft and warm.
Then Amber's phone lit up on the table beside her bread plate.
She turned it over quickly, but not before I caught a name on the screen.
*Derek calling.*
I didn't react.
I kept my eyes on my plate and took a small, unhurried bite.
"Excuse me," Amber said.
"I need to take this." She stood and walked to the far end of the terrace, just past the last table, facing the water.
Mark watched her go.
"She's been on her phone a lot today."
"Has she?"
"Since we got here." He turned his water glass in a slow circle.
"Mom.
I need to tell you something."
"All right."
"I didn't know.
About any of this.
The resort.
The company.
I genuinely had no idea how much you'd built." He looked down.
"And I'm not sure how I feel about that."
"Which part?"
"The part where you built it alone.
And never said a word."
"I tried to tell you once," I said.
"You were twenty-six.
You'd just gotten your first sales job and you were very busy feeling like you'd figured everything out.
I mentioned I was expanding the business, and you said, 'That's great, Mom,' and changed the subject."
He closed his eyes.
"I stopped trying after that," I said.
Not cruelly.
Just truthfully.
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
At the far end of the terrace, Amber laughed.
A real laugh, bright and unguarded.
The kind she never used around me.
She had her back to us, her shoulders relaxed, her free hand resting on the railing.
Whoever Derek was, she was comfortable with him.
Very comfortable.
Mark didn't look toward her.
He was still looking at me.
"I want to fix things," he said.
"Between us.
Whatever it takes."
I looked at my son — at the lines around his eyes that hadn't been there the last time I'd really looked — and I wanted to believe him.
"That depends," I said carefully, "on whether there are things you still don't know."
He frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that this week may be more complicated than a family vacation.
And when it becomes complicated, I'll need to know whose side you're on."
Mark opened his mouth.
Amber returned to the table before he could answer.
"Sorry about that." She sat down and shook out her napkin with a bright smile.
May you like
"Now.
Where were we?"
