Chapter 8: The Morning After
I drove him to Marcus's apartment.
Marcus had been Daniel's closest friend since university.
He opened the door in a t-shirt and socks, took one look at Daniel's face, and said nothing except "I'll get the couch set up." That was the right answer.
I sat with Daniel at Marcus's kitchen table for an hour.
We didn't talk much.
He made tea he didn't drink.
I kept my hands around my mug for the warmth.
"Did you know," he said eventually.
"About the claim.
Before tonight."
"No," I said.
"I knew about the photograph and the texts.
I found those two weeks ago.
I didn't know about the estate until she told me tonight."
"Why did you wait two weeks?"
"I needed to be sure." I looked at my tea.
"And I didn't want to be the one who did this to you."
"You didn't do this to me."
"I know.
But it still feels like that."
He nodded.
"Yeah."
We sat there for a while longer.
"The money she borrowed from you," he said.
"The forty-three thousand."
"Don't worry about that right now."
"I'm going to pay it back."
"Daniel—"
"I mean it." He finally picked up his mug.
"You funded the life I've been living for the past year.
The least I can do is give it back."
"The least you can do," I said, "is get some sleep."
He almost smiled.
Not quite.
I drove home just before two in the morning.
My mother was still awake.
She was sitting at the kitchen table in her dressing gown with a cup of cold tea.
She looked older than she had at the start of the evening.
Or maybe I was just seeing her differently.
I sat down across from her.
"You should have told him," I said.
"From the beginning."
"I know that now."
"You knew it then."
She wrapped both hands around her cup.
"I thought I was holding the family together."
"You thought you were holding the house together."
She didn't argue that time.
"What happens now," she said.
"With the claim."
"I called a solicitor from the car.
She said an informal letter from 1987 is not automatically enforceable.
It depends on jurisdiction, on whether there was any documented acknowledgment since then, on a few other factors." I paused.
"It's not certain that he wins."
She looked up.
"We're going to need the documents from Dad's files," I said.
"Everything related to that partnership.
And we're going to fight it properly.
With a lawyer.
Not with a wedding."
Her eyes went bright for a moment.
She blinked it away.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"About the dresses."
It was such a small apology for such a large evening that I didn't know what to do with it right away.
"I know," I said.
"I was frightened," she said.
"I have been frightened for two years, since that letter arrived.
And when I'm frightened I become—"
"I know what you become," I said.
She nodded once.
We sat there in the quiet kitchen for a few minutes.
The house was still.
Outside, a car passed on the road.
The refrigerator made its small reliable sound.
"The wedding guests," she said finally.
"I'll help you make the calls in the morning."
She exhaled.
"Two hundred and forty people."
"Yes."
"It will be humiliating."
"It will be honest," I said.
"That's different."
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then she stood up, rinsed her cup at the sink, and said, "Get some sleep."
I sat at the table after she'd gone upstairs.
The binder was still in my bag.
The shredded fabric was still on my bedroom floor.
The venue was still technically cancelled, the confirmation email having gone through at some point in the last few hours — I had checked on the drive home and received a refund notification already queued.
I thought about Daniel on a pull-out couch in Marcus's living room.
I thought about Renee in whatever hotel she had gone to, because she hadn't come back to the house.
May you like
I thought about a letter signed in 1987 by a man who had been d*ad for six years.
I turned off the kitchen light and went to bed.
