Chapter 5: What Vance Brought to the Table
Vance arrived at noon exactly, which told me he had been watching the clock.
He came in with the easy confidence he always carried — the slightly too-relaxed posture, the half-smile that was meant to signal he wasn't worried about anything.
He dropped into a kitchen chair without being invited and looked around the room.
"Nice to actually be in your house for once," he said.
"You're always traveling."
"I work," I said.
I poured two glasses of water and set one in front of him.
I didn't sit down yet.
"So what's this about?" he asked.
"You're not still upset about the hospital thing, are you?
Because Mom already feels terrible."
"Does she."
"Yeah, she does.
She went too far, she knows that." He picked up the glass.
"But you cutting off the money — that was pretty extreme, Diane.
She's got bills."
I walked to the counter.
Picked up the manila envelope.
Set it on the table in front of him.
He looked at it.
Didn't touch it.
"What's that?"
"Bank statements," I said.
"Twenty-two months of them."
The half-smile stayed on his face, but something behind his eyes shifted.
"Whose bank statements?"
"Mom's.
And yours." I sat down across from him.
"I know about the gambling, Vance."
He was quiet for exactly three seconds.
Then he leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath, like a man who had been holding something heavy and was finally setting it down.
"Carla," he said.
Not a question.
"It doesn't matter how I found out."
"It matters to me." His voice had changed.
The easy tone was gone.
"She had no right to go through my things."
"You had no right to use my money to fund a gambling habit for two years."
"I didn't use your money."
"Vance." I opened the envelope and pulled out the top three pages.
Slid them across.
"Mom was taking a portion of every transfer I sent and giving it to you.
I've done the math.
I know approximately how much."
He looked at the pages.
His jaw tightened.
"That was her choice," he said.
"I didn't ask her to do that."
"You didn't stop her either."
"I needed help.
I was going to pay it back."
"With what?"
He didn't answer.
"The comedy program," I said.
"Was that real?
Or was that a way to get more money out of me?"
Something crossed his face that I hadn't expected.
Not defiance.
Something closer to shame.
"It was real," he said quietly.
"I thought if I could just get one thing going — one actual thing — I could stop.
I was going to stop."
"But you didn't."
"No."
I looked at my brother.
Thirty-five years old.
Sitting in my kitchen with his hands around a glass of water, looking smaller than I had ever seen him look.
"How much do you owe?" I asked.
He didn't answer immediately.
"Vance.
How much?"
"Nineteen thousand," he said.
"Give or take."
The number landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
"And the people you owe it to," I said.
"Are they the kind of people who wait?"
His eyes came up to mine.
For the first time since he had walked through my door, he looked genuinely frightened.
"No," he said.
"They're not."
"Then here's what's going to happen," I said.
"You're going to tell me everything.
Every name, every amount, every arrangement.
All of it.
And then we're going to figure out what can actually be done.
But I need the truth first.
The whole truth.
Not the version you've been giving Mom."
He was quiet for a long moment.
May you like
Then he nodded.
And he started talking.
