Chapter 9: The Call Bonnie Made
Three days passed.
Constance's letter reached Dennis Farrow on the second day.
He called her office twice and my number once.
I didn't answer.
By the afternoon of the third day, his attorney had contacted Constance with a counteroffer.
We settled at the full principal — eighty thousand — with a signed release of all claims.
I wired the funds from a personal account Caden had never had access to.
Farrow's car did not appear on Oleander Street again.
My mother's knee had improved with rest.
She sat in the garden each morning with Donovan, teaching him the names of plants the way she had taught me when I was small.
I watched them from the kitchen window while I worked, my laptop open on the counter, calls coming in from the Guadalajara contract team.
On the fourth morning, Caden knocked at the front door.
I opened it.
He looked like he had slept, finally.
He was holding a folder.
"Can I come in?" he said.
I stepped back.
He came inside and sat at the table.
"I called her," he said.
"The night you asked me to."
"How did it go?"
"She denied it at first.
Then she said Gerald was manipulative.
Then she said she did it to protect me." He set the folder on the table.
"Then she said that if I chose you over her, she was done with me."
I waited.
"I told her I understood," he said.
"And I told her that I was choosing you."
The folder had documents inside.
I didn't open it yet.
"What's this?" I asked.
"I had my own attorney look at our finances," he said.
"Everything I've spent from the household account in the last three years.
All of it itemized.
The Farrow payments.
A few other things I hadn't told you about." He paused.
"Smaller things.
But I wanted you to see all of it."
I opened the folder.
I read the first page.
Then the second.
There were smaller things.
A membership he hadn't mentioned.
A weekend trip with friends I hadn't known about.
Nothing catastrophic.
But all of it added up to a portrait of a man who had learned from his mother that what his wife didn't know couldn't hurt her.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me today," Caden said.
"I'm asking you to see that I'm trying to show you everything.
Even the things that make me look bad."
I closed the folder.
"That's a start," I said.
"I know it's only a start."
We sat in silence for a moment.
"Donovan asked about you this morning," I said.
Something moved across his face.
"What did he say?"
"He asked why Daddy was sleeping somewhere else." I looked at him.
"I told him you were figuring some things out."
"That's true," Caden said.
"It is," I said.
"The question is whether you finish figuring them out."
He nodded.
He didn't push for more than that.
He stood, thanked me for letting him in, and walked back to the front door.
"Caden," I said.
He turned.
"Donovan has swimming on Saturday.
If you want to come, you can meet us there."
He stood very still for a moment.
"I'll be there," he said.
After he left, I went to the garden.
My mother was showing Donovan how to water the small herb bed along the south wall.
He was holding the can with both hands, very serious about it, his tongue pressed between his teeth in concentration.
My mother looked up when she heard me.
"Everything all right?" she asked.
"Getting there," I said.
She nodded, the way she always nodded when she believed me but wanted to make sure I knew she was paying attention.
"Come help us," she said.
"Donovan says the mint needs more water."
"The mint always needs more water," I said.
"That's what I told him," she said.
"He didn't believe me either."
I crouched down beside my son and put my hand over his on the watering can.
May you like
"More," Donovan said seriously.
"More," I agreed.
