Chapter 8: Monday Morning
Sunday passed quietly.
I spent the morning in my workshop — the one they had planned to take.
It was a long room at the back of the property, full of the smell of sawdust and machine oil, tools hung in the order I had learned from my father.
I didn't build anything.
I just stood in it for a while.
In the afternoon, my daughter called.
I almost didn't answer.
Then I did.
"Dad." Her voice was careful, the way it gets when she's working up to something.
"Lily," I said.
A silence.
"Raymond told me you talked," she said.
"We did."
"He said you have documents.
Bank records."
"I do."
Another silence, longer.
I heard her breathe.
"Did Mom know?" she said.
"About the transfers.
Did she know what Raymond was doing?"
I sat down on the workbench stool.
Outside, a bird was working at the feeder I had hung in the yard the spring Lily turned twelve.
"Yes," I said.
She didn't say anything for a long time.
"I didn't know about the accounts," she said finally.
"I signed things — Raymond said they were tax documents.
He said you had agreed to restructure the—" Her voice broke slightly and steadied.
"I believed him."
"I know," I said.
"Dad." The word came out small.
"I'm sorry about the suit."
The suit.
Three men laughing, fabric torn, my silence taken for defeat.
"That's not what matters right now," I said.
"It matters to me," she said.
I looked at the tools on the wall.
Eleven years old, my father's hand over mine, showing me how to hold a plane correctly.
*Steady.
Let the tool do the work.*
"Lily," I said.
"On Monday morning, Donald is going to file a civil complaint.
It will name Raymond and Elaine Corby.
It may name your mother."
She was quiet.
"I need you to know that before it happens," I said.
"Not to hurt you.
Because you deserve to know."
"Will it—" She stopped.
"Will it affect the marriage?"
"That depends on Raymond," I said.
"And on you."
She didn't answer that.
"I'll call you Monday afternoon," I said.
"After it's filed."
"Okay," she said.
"Lily."
"Yeah."
"The suit doesn't matter.
You matter.
That hasn't changed."
She made a sound that wasn't quite a word.
Then the line was quiet for a moment, and she said, "I'll talk to you Monday," and hung up.
Monday came gray and cool.
I was at Donald's office at eight.
The complaint was ready — forty-two pages, fully documented, with the bank records, the transfer logs, the holding company registration, the venue call log, and the recording from the reception attached as exhibits.
At eight forty-five, my phone rang.
Raymond.
I put it on speaker.
Donald pressed record.
"I want to settle," Raymond said.
Without preamble, without greeting.
"Full restitution.
Fifty-two thousand, four hundred.
Returned to your joint account by end of week.
Elaine signs a release.
I sign whatever you need."
"And the mortgage appointment?" I said.
"Cancelled.
I called the bank this morning."
"Why?" I said.
A pause.
"Because Curtis told me what you have.
And because—" Another pause, shorter.
"Because Lily called me last night.
After she talked to you."
I looked at Donald.
He was writing something on a notepad.
"What did she say?" I said.
"She said she wanted the truth," Raymond said.
"All of it.
And that if I couldn't give it to her, she needed to know that too."
The line was quiet for a moment.
"Raymond," I said.
"The complaint gets filed at nine o'clock regardless of this call.
That's already decided.
What happens after that depends on how completely you cooperate."
"I understand," he said.
"Elaine needs to return the funds by Wednesday," I said.
"Not end of week.
Wednesday."
"I'll tell her."
"And Raymond — my daughter is going to have questions.
Real ones.
You answer them.
All of them.
Honestly.
That's not negotiable."
A long pause.
"Yeah," he said.
"Okay."
I ended the call.
Donald filed the complaint at nine o'clock exactly.
At nine-fourteen, Curtis Webb called Donald's office and requested a settlement conference.
At ten-thirty, Sandra called me.
I let it go to voicemail.
She left a message that was two minutes long.
I listened to the first thirty seconds — her voice was tight, controlled, the voice she used when she was frightened — and then I set the phone down.
I would listen to the rest later.
Or I wouldn't.
That decision could wait.
What could not wait was the call I made at eleven.
Lily picked up on the first ring.
"It's filed," I said.
"I know," she said.
"Raymond told me."
"How are you?"
A breath.
"I don't know yet.
I think I'm still figuring out what I actually knew and what I told myself I knew."
"That takes time," I said.
"Dad." A pause.
"Can I come over?
Not today.
Maybe Wednesday.
I just — I want to sit in the workshop for a while.
Like we used to."
I looked out the window of Donald's office at the gray morning, the street below, a woman walking a dog with a red collar.
May you like
"Wednesday is good," I said.
"I'll be there."
