Chapter 3: What Diane Kept in the Drawer
I got my children into the car first.
Rebecca sat in the back with Jacob pressed against her side.
Samuel stared out the window and said nothing.
He was nine years old and he had the face of someone trying very hard not to cry in front of his younger siblings.
I drove two streets away, pulled over, and called my sister.
Diane picked up before the second ring.
"Are you away from the house?" she said.
"Yes.
The kids are with me."
"Good." A pause.
"Don't go back there tonight.
Not until you've seen what I have."
"Diane.
Tell me now."
"I can't over the phone.
Come to my apartment.
How soon can you be here?"
I looked in the rearview mirror.
Rebecca was stroking Jacob's hair.
Samuel had pressed his forehead against the glass.
"Forty minutes," I said.
Diane lived on the fourth floor of a building near the edge of town.
She met me at the door before I knocked.
Her eyes went straight to the children, and something moved across her face — not surprise.
Something older than that.
"Come in," she said quietly.
"I made sandwiches."
She sat the children at the kitchen table and put food in front of them without making a fuss about it.
Jacob ate immediately.
Rebecca watched Diane with careful eyes.
Samuel picked up a sandwich and put it down again.
When Diane came into the living room and closed the kitchen door behind her, she was holding a brown envelope.
"How long have you known?" I said.
"About the money — three years." She set the envelope on the coffee table between us.
"About the rest — I only found out two months ago.
I've been trying to figure out how to tell you."
"Just tell me."
She sat down.
"The money you've been sending every month.
Dad told you it was going toward the mortgage.
That the house would be paid off and then it would come to both of us equally."
"That's what he said."
"The mortgage was paid off four years ago, Marcus." She pressed her fingers flat on the envelope.
"Four years before you started sending money."
The room was very quiet.
"Where has it been going?" I said.
"Robert." She said the name like she'd been holding it in her mouth too long.
"Dad has been transferring it to Robert's account every month.
Robert has a property development business.
It's been failing for years.
Dad has been keeping it alive with your money."
I looked at the envelope.
"Open it," Diane said.
Inside were bank statements.
Printed and dated.
Six years of transfers, each one landing in an account under Robert's business name.
Beside them were two photographs — Robert and my father at what looked like a signing table, both of them smiling, a document between them.
"What is that document?" I said.
"A partnership agreement.
Dad signed over a twenty percent stake in the family property to Robert's company.
Two years ago." She paused.
"Without telling you.
Without telling me."
My father had been afraid in that garden.
I had thought it was because of what I'd said about the money.
But that wasn't it.
He was afraid because he thought I already knew.
"There's one more thing," Diane said.
She reached into the envelope and pulled out a single folded sheet.
"I found this in his desk drawer three months ago when I was helping Mum look for the car insurance papers.
I photographed it and put it back.
He doesn't know I've seen it."
I unfolded the sheet.
It was a letter.
Handwritten.
From my father to Robert.
The last paragraph read: *Marcus will keep sending the money.
He trusts me.
He always has.
That's the one thing I can count on.*
I set the letter down on the table.
From the kitchen came the sound of Jacob asking Diane if there was any juice.
"In the fridge, sweetheart," Diane called back.
Her voice was completely steady.
She looked at me.
"What do you want to do?"
I didn't answer straight away.
I read the last line of the letter one more time.
*That's the one thing I can count on.*
"I want to know," I said, "if Robert has spent it all."
May you like
Diane's expression shifted.
"That's the part that gets worse."
