Chapter 3: The Thing Nobody Said Out Loud
I didn't sleep well that night.
Leo was asleep down the hall, his glasses folded on the nightstand, his procedure two days away.
I had checked the hospital portal three times before bed.
The appointment was still there.
The verification phrase was still active.
Nobody could touch it.
But Mom's words kept circling.
*You don't know everything that's been going on with Vance.*
I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee that had gone cold and thought about my brother.
Thirty-five years old.
No job.
No apartment of his own.
A new "opportunity" every eight months that never became anything.
I had written it off as immaturity.
Laziness, even.
But Mom's voice on the phone had not sounded like she was covering for a lazy son.
She had sounded afraid.
My phone lit up.
A text from an unknown number.
*This is Carla.
Vance's girlfriend.
I think we need to talk.
Please don't tell him I contacted you.*
I stared at the screen.
I typed back: *How did you get this number?*
*Vance has it saved.
I'm using his old phone.
He doesn't know.*
I set the phone down.
Picked it up again.
*What do you need to tell me?*
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
*Not over text.
Can you meet me tomorrow?
There's a diner on Mercer Street.
Eleven o'clock.*
I looked at the time.
It was past midnight.
*I'll be there,* I typed.
---
The diner on Mercer Street was the kind of place that had been there since before I was born.
Vinyl booths, laminated menus, coffee that arrived without asking.
I got there ten minutes early and took a seat facing the door.
Carla arrived at eleven exactly.
She was younger than I expected — maybe late twenties — with dark circles under her eyes and a canvas tote bag she held against her chest like a shield.
She slid into the booth across from me without taking her coat off.
"Thank you for coming," she said.
"You said it was important."
"It is." She glanced toward the door.
"Vance doesn't know I'm here.
I need you to understand that before I say anything else."
"Understood."
She reached into the tote bag and pulled out a manila envelope.
She set it on the table between us but kept her hand on top of it.
"How much do you know about what Vance has been doing for the past two years?" she asked.
"He's been living at my mother's house.
Looking for work."
Something moved across her face.
Not quite pity.
Closer to the expression people make when they realize they have to be the one to say the hard thing.
"He hasn't been looking for work," she said.
"He's been gambling."
The coffee cup was halfway to my mouth.
I set it back down.
"How long?"
"At least two years.
Probably longer." She lifted her hand from the envelope.
"It started online.
Sports betting, mostly.
Then he found a card room about forty minutes from your mom's house.
He's been going three, four nights a week."
"How much has he lost?"
She opened the envelope.
Inside were printed bank statements, a stack of them, with certain transactions highlighted in yellow.
She slid them across to me.
I looked at the numbers.
My stomach dropped in the same way it had at the airport when I saw Leo's cancellation notice.
"Where did this money come from?" I asked, even though part of me already knew.
"Your mom remortgaged the house eight months ago," Carla said.
"She told Vance it was to cover repairs.
But the repairs never happened." She paused.
"And before that, she was using the money you sent her.
The monthly transfers.
She was giving a portion of it to Vance to cover his losses.
So he could keep going back."
I sat very still.
All those months.
All those transfers.
The mortgage payments I thought I was covering.
The household expenses.
The guilt trips about how much I earned and how easy it should be to help.
I had not been supporting my mother.
I had been funding my brother's gambling.
"Does Vance know you have these?" I asked.
Carla's jaw tightened.
"He knows I found out about the gambling.
We had a fight about it three weeks ago.
He told me it was under control." She looked at the envelope.
"That's when I started keeping records."
"Why are you bringing this to me?"
She finally took her coat off.
Folded it carefully on the seat beside her.
"Because your mom called me last week," she said.
"After you cut off the transfers.
She asked me to talk to you.
To convince you to start sending money again." She met my eyes.
"She said Vance owed people.
That it wasn't safe for him to owe people."
The diner felt very quiet suddenly.
May you like
"What kind of people?" I asked.
"The kind you don't want your brother owing money to," Carla said.
