Chapter 9: The Last Thing Susan Said
She chose the house.
Nick had suggested a neutral location.
Susan had said no.
She wanted her own kitchen, her own table.
Nick looked at me and I shrugged, because I had already stood in that backyard and survived it, and a kitchen held nothing worse.
Richard was there when we arrived.
Marcus too, standing by the back window with his arms folded, watching his mother the way you watch something you love that you're no longer sure you trust.
Susan was seated at the table.
She looked smaller than she had two days ago.
Not physically — she was the same composed, well-dressed woman she had always been — but something in her posture had changed.
The absolute certainty was gone.
She had a solicitor's letter in front of her.
Claire's.
"Sit down," she said.
We sat.
"I've read this," she said, touching the letter.
"All of it." She looked at Claire's summary beside it.
"I'm not going to pretend I didn't know what I was doing."
Nick said nothing.
"I knew about the fraud clause," she said.
"Your grandfather told me about it when the trust was written.
I thought—" She stopped.
Started again.
"I thought that if the relationship ended naturally, if Hannah simply believed you were gone and moved on, it wouldn't qualify as fraud.
There would be no proof of interference.
It would just be — a tragedy.
An accident that had consequences."
"You planned it that way," Nick said.
"I planned for it to be undetectable, yes."
"Mom."
"I'm not asking you to understand it.
I'm telling you what happened."
Richard stood up from his chair and walked to the window.
He stood next to Marcus and neither of them spoke.
"What do you want from this meeting?" Nick asked.
Susan looked at me.
"I want to say something to Hannah," she said.
"Directly.
Without a solicitor in the room."
"Claire isn't here," I said.
"I know." She folded her hands on the table.
"I have been trying to find the right words for two days.
I don't think there are right words.
But I want to try."
I waited.
"I decided you weren't good enough for my son before I had any real reason to think so," she said.
"I decided it early, and then I looked for evidence to confirm it, and when the argument happened I told myself I'd been right all along." She paused.
"The money was real.
The concern about the money was real.
But it wasn't only the money.
I want to be honest about that."
"Then what was it?" I said.
"Fear," she said.
"He loved you more than he'd ever loved anything.
And I didn't know how to be the mother of a man who loved someone that much." She looked at her hands.
"That is not an excuse.
I know that.
I'm not offering it as one."
The kitchen clock ticked.
"What I did to you was wrong," she said.
"What I did to Nick was wrong.
I took something from both of you that I had no right to take, and I cannot give it back." She looked up.
"I am not asking for forgiveness.
I don't think I've earned the right to ask for that.
I'm asking you to know that I understand what I did.
Fully.
Not partially."
Nick looked at his mother for a long time.
"The solicitor's letter outlines what we're prepared to do," he said.
"The trust, the intercepted correspondence, the faked messages.
All of it." He paused.
"We're not going to pursue the civil damages claim.
That was Hannah's decision."
Susan looked at me.
"It would take years," I said.
"And I don't want to spend years on this.
I want to move forward." I held her gaze.
"But the trust stands as Gerald Fenn has determined it.
And you don't contest it."
"I won't contest it," she said.
"And you leave us alone," Nick said.
"Not forever.
But for now.
You don't call.
You don't show up.
You give us time to figure out what this family looks like going forward, if it looks like anything at all."
Susan's throat moved.
"Okay," she said.
Marcus pushed off from the window.
"I'll hold you to that, Mum." His voice was quiet but it wasn't gentle.
"Both parts."
Susan looked at her younger son.
Something passed between them — old and complicated and not resolved, not today, maybe not for a long time.
"I know," she said.
We stood up.
At the front door, Susan spoke one more time.
"Nick." He stopped but didn't turn around.
"Your grandfather would have liked her.
I knew that.
I knew it from the beginning." A pause.
"I think that was part of it too."
Nick opened the front door.
May you like
"I know, Mum," he said.
And walked out.
