Chapter 6: Gerald Speaks First
I didn't sleep well.
Not because I was afraid — the fear had burned off somewhere on the shoulder of that highway with the banking app still open on my screen.
What kept me awake was the arithmetic.
Twelve years.
Three transfers.
Fourteen months.
Forty-eight thousand dollars.
Four years in London.
The numbers kept rearranging themselves in the dark, and every new arrangement told the same story.
I was downstairs at six in the morning.
Gerald was already at the kitchen table.
He was sitting very still, both hands wrapped around a mug, staring at nothing.
He looked smaller than he had yesterday.
Older.
I filled the kettle without speaking.
Set it on the base.
Waited.
"I want you to know," Gerald said quietly, "that I told him not to."
I turned around.
He wasn't looking at me.
He was looking at his mug, turning it slowly between his palms.
"Three years ago," he said.
"When he first mentioned her.
I told him it was wrong.
I told him he had a good wife and a good home and that he was going to destroy everything." He paused.
"He told me to mind my own business."
I pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.
"Did Shirley know?" I asked.
A long pause.
"Shirley," he said carefully, "has always believed that whatever Everett does, he does for good reasons."
"That's not an answer."
He looked up at me then.
His eyes were tired and a little ashamed and very, very old.
"She knew," he said.
"Not everything.
But enough."
The kettle clicked off.
Neither of us moved.
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.
"Because you've been decent to us," he said.
"Since we moved in here, you haven't said a word against us.
You made up the guest room.
You bought the brand of tea Shirley likes even though I know she's never once thanked you for it." He set his mug down.
"And because what Everett did isn't right.
What Shirley did isn't right.
And I'm eighty-one years old and I don't have enough time left to keep pretending things are right when they aren't."
I looked at him across the table.
This quiet, tired man who had carried suitcases up my front step with his eyes turned down.
"Gerald," I said.
"I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me."
"All right."
"The deed amendment.
Fourteen months ago.
Did you know about that?"
He frowned.
"What amendment?"
"Everett added himself to my house deed fourteen months ago.
He had me sign it along with other documents by telling me it was insurance paperwork."
Gerald's frown deepened.
He set both hands flat on the table.
"He told me he and you had sorted out the property arrangements together," he said slowly.
"That you'd both agreed it made sense." He shook his head.
"He said you were happy about it."
"I didn't know I'd signed it until yesterday."
Gerald was quiet for a long moment.
"I'm sorry," he said.
It came out simply, without decoration.
Just two words, and they carried the weight of everything he hadn't said for three years.
"I need you to be willing to say what you just told me," I said.
"To Eleanor.
My attorney.
Formally, if it comes to that."
He looked at his hands.
"Shirley won't like it," he said.
"No," I agreed.
"She won't."
Another long pause.
The morning light was coming through the kitchen window, falling across the plates Shirley had rearranged yesterday.
I hadn't moved them back.
"All right," Gerald said.
"I'll talk to your attorney."
My phone lit up on the counter.
A text from an unknown London number.
*You should know who you're really dealing with, Stella.
Call me.
— Diane.*
I stared at the name.
Diane.
May you like
The other woman had my number.
And she wanted to talk.
