Chapter 8: What Renee Knew
We sat at the kitchen table with tea going cold between us, and Renee told me things she had been holding for three years.
"I knew something was wrong with the money before you did," she said.
"I saw a transfer on a shared document about two years ago — Dad had given Daniel and me both access to the company's general ledger as part of a succession planning thing.
I saw a line item that didn't match any client account I recognized." She wrapped both hands around her mug.
"I asked Daniel about it.
He said it was a vendor payment, gave me a whole explanation.
I believed him because I wanted to."
"You didn't tell your father."
"No." She looked at the table.
"I told myself it was probably nothing.
That I'd misread it.
That Daniel wouldn't—" She stopped.
"I knew what I saw.
I just didn't want it to be true."
"Renee."
"I know," she said.
"I know.
I should have said something.
If I had said something two years ago, maybe—"
"Maybe," I said.
"But you're saying something now."
She looked up.
Her eyes were red at the edges.
"I gave a statement to Grace's investigator on Tuesday.
Everything I saw, everything I knew, everything I told myself wasn't real." She paused.
"It wasn't easy."
"I know."
"He's my brother," she said.
"He's still my brother."
"I know that too."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "My mother called me yesterday.
She wants me to come stay with her."
"Are you going to?"
"I don't know yet." She turned her mug in her hands.
"She's not a good person, Emily.
I've known that for a long time.
But she's also — she's my mother.
And right now she has no one."
I thought about what it cost her to say that.
To hold both things at once — the truth of what her mother was and the fact of loving her anyway.
"You can go," I said.
"You don't have to stay here."
"I want to stay a little longer," she said.
"If that's all right."
"It's all right."
She nodded.
We sat in the quiet kitchen for a while.
The tea went completely cold.
Neither of us moved to warm it up.
"Can I ask you something?" Renee said.
"Yes."
"Did you ever think about just — leaving?
Before all of this.
Before the lawyer, the accountant, all of it.
Did you ever think about just walking out and not fighting any of it?"
I considered the question honestly.
"Yes," I said.
"More than once.
It would have been easier."
"Why didn't you?"
I looked at my bandaged hand.
"Because it was my grandmother's house," I said.
"She left it to me because she wanted me to have somewhere that was mine.
Somewhere no one could take from me." I looked up.
"I wasn't going to let them take it."
Renee nodded slowly.
"She sounds like she was something."
"She was," I said.
"She really was."
The kitchen was warm.
Outside, the January dark pressed against the windows.
Somewhere down the street, a neighbor's dog barked twice and went quiet.
Renee picked up both mugs and carried them to the kettle without being asked.
"Fresh cup?" she said.
May you like
"Please," I said.
And that was the kindest thing anyone had done for me in a very long time.
