Chapter 4: What Derek Knew
Marcus pulled over at the end of Diane's road, just past the mailbox, where the gravel met the asphalt.
He read the message twice.
Handed me the phone.
I read it.
Then I looked at him.
"How does Derek know you just called her?" I said.
"He doesn't.
He couldn't." Marcus took the phone back.
"Unless she called him the second we left."
"Or she texted him while we were still on the porch."
We both looked back toward the house.
The porch was empty.
The front door was closed.
Ellie had fallen asleep against the window, the rabbit tucked under her chin.
Marcus typed back: *Derek.
What's going on?
What don't I know?*
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then: *Can you meet me?
Not at your mom's.
Somewhere else.
Tomorrow if you can.*
Marcus showed me the screen.
"Go," I said.
He typed the name of a diner in town, forty minutes from the lake.
Derek sent back a single word: *Noon.*
We drove home mostly quiet.
I kept the invoice in my bag.
I didn't want to look at it again but I didn't want to leave it in the car where Ellie might find it and ask what it was.
She woke up twenty minutes from home and asked if we could stop for ice cream.
We did.
She got strawberry.
She told us about the heron again, how it stood completely still in the shallow water, how Grandma said it was waiting for something it couldn't see yet.
I thought about that on the drive home.
Marcus met Derek the next day.
I stayed with Ellie.
He was gone for two and a half hours.
When he came back he sat down at the kitchen table and didn't take his jacket off.
"Tell me," I said.
He put both hands flat on the table.
"It started when their oldest was born.
Patrice asked Mom to help with childcare a few days a week while she went back to work.
Mom agreed.
She was happy about it, Patrice said.
Excited."
"Okay."
"Three months in, Mom handed her an envelope.
Said it was just to keep things fair.
Patrice thought it was a card." He stopped.
"It was an invoice.
Eight weeks of childcare.
Itemized by the hour."
I sat down across from him.
"Patrice was shocked.
She didn't know what to do.
She paid it because she didn't want a fight, and because she needed the help, and because she thought it was a one-time thing."
"It wasn't."
"Every two months.
Regular as a bill from the electric company.
Derek said Patrice started dreading the envelope.
She'd see it on the counter and feel sick."
"How long did it go on?"
"Three years.
Until Patrice told her she'd found a nursery.
Mom cried.
Said she felt replaced.
Said Patrice was taking the children away from her." He shook his head slowly.
"And Patrice felt guilty.
She actually felt guilty."
I thought about the logo on our invoice.
The little oval with Diane's initials.
Something designed.
Something made with intention.
"Marcus.
That logo."
"I know."
"That's not something you put together because you're keeping casual records.
That's something you make because you plan to use it.
Over and over."
He nodded.
"Derek said there's more." He looked up at me.
"He said she did it to someone else.
Before Patrice.
Before any of us knew about it."
"Who?"
Marcus was quiet for a moment.
"Her own sister," he said.
"Aunt Roberta.
Thirty years ago.
Mom helped her after her husband left.
Watched her kids, helped around the house.
Then one day handed her a bill for all of it." He paused.
"Roberta paid it.
And then she never spoke to Mom again."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"That's why they don't talk," I said.
"We always thought it was just old family tension."
"It was this.
It's always been this."
I looked at the bag on the counter where I'd put the invoice.
"She's been doing this her whole life," I said.
Marcus finally took off his jacket.
"Derek said Patrice has kept every invoice.
Every single one.
In a folder." He looked at me.
"She never threw them away.
She said she didn't know why she kept them.
She just couldn't make herself get rid of them."
My phone buzzed on the table.
It was Diane.
*Just checking you all got home safely.
Give Ellie a kiss from me.
May you like
Let me know about the invoice when you've had a chance to think it over.
No rush.*
