Chapter 3: What the Numbers Said
I waited until Thomas left to return his mother's glasses in person.
He kissed me on the cheek at the door, said he'd be back within the hour, and I nodded and smiled and watched the car reverse out of the driveway.
The moment he turned the corner, I went back to the guest room.
I spread everything on the bed.
The two photographs.
The bank statements.
A third document I hadn't fully looked at the first time — folded smaller than the rest, tucked between two pages of figures.
I unfolded it.
It was a letter.
Handwritten.
Eleanor's handwriting — I recognized the careful, upright script from birthday cards she'd sent over the years.
It was addressed to Thomas.
*If you are reading this, then I didn't find the right moment to tell you myself.
I'm sorry for that.
I'm sorry for all of it.
But you need to know what I found, and you need to know before it's too late.*
My hands went still.
I read it again.
Then I set it down and looked at the bank statements properly for the first time.
The account was in Thomas's name.
But the deposits — regular, consistent, arriving on the fourteenth of every month for three years — were not from any employer I recognized.
The originating account name was listed only as a reference number.
Forty-two thousand dollars.
Spread across thirty-six months.
Arriving like clockwork.
I picked up my phone and called my sister, Diane.
She answered on the second ring.
"Hey, you.
How does it feel having your house back?"
"I need you to come over," I said.
A pause.
"What happened?"
"I found something.
Under the mattress in the guest room.
I need another set of eyes before I decide what to do."
"Give me twenty minutes," she said, and hung up.
I sat at the kitchen table and stared at the letter until I heard her car in the driveway.
Diane came through the door without knocking — she never does — and stopped when she saw my face.
"That bad?"
"I don't know yet," I said.
"That's what scares me."
I laid everything out in front of her.
She didn't speak while she read.
She picked up the bank statements first, ran her finger down the columns, then set them aside and read Eleanor's letter twice.
When she finally looked up, her expression was careful.
"Okay," she said.
"Walk me through what you think this is."
"I don't know what I think," I said.
"Someone has been putting money into an account with Thomas's name on it for three years.
His mother found out about it, hid the evidence in our guest room, and wrote him a letter she apparently never gave him."
"Which means either Thomas knows about this account," Diane said slowly, "or he doesn't."
"Yes."
"And Eleanor either wanted to protect him," she continued, "or she wanted to protect herself from having to say it out loud."
I hadn't thought of it that way.
I looked at the letter again.
*You need to know before it's too late.*
"Too late for what?" Diane said, reading my face.
"That's what I can't figure out."
Diane turned the bank statement over, as if something might be written on the back.
"Do you recognize this deposit reference number?"
"No."
"Have you ever seen this account on a tax return?
A joint filing?"
"We file jointly.
I've never seen this account."
She set the paper down flat.
"Then either Thomas has a separate financial life you don't know about, or someone opened an account in his name without him knowing."
The front door opened.
Thomas's voice came from the hallway.
"I'm back — took longer than I thought, she wanted to—" He stopped when he stepped into the kitchen and saw Diane.
Saw the papers on the table.
His eyes moved from the documents to my face.
The smile didn't leave his face immediately.
May you like
It faded slowly, the way color drains from something left too long in the sun.
"What is that?" he said.
