Chapter 4: Four Years of Entries
"I want to see that," Linda said.
Her voice was controlled, but her knuckles on the chair back were white.
Robert didn't move the notebook.
"You've seen it," he said.
"You knew I was keeping it."
"You never said anything."
"No," he said.
"I didn't."
My mom was still looking at the page.
She turned it carefully, reading the next one.
Her face stayed calm, but I knew that face.
That was her working face.
The one she wore when she was deciding something.
"Robert," she said, "how far back does this go?"
"The first entry is from 2019.
Patrice Holloway's baby shower.
Linda volunteered to collect the gift envelopes at the end of the night.
Said she'd pass them along." He paused.
"Patrice never received them."
I turned to Daniel.
He was staring at his father.
His face had gone very still.
"I didn't know about Patrice," he said quietly.
"I know you didn't," Robert said.
"How much?" my mom asked.
"That one was around eight hundred dollars.
The amounts got larger at events where Linda had more control over the setup." Robert turned one more page.
"The retirement dinner for Frank Okafor — that was forty-two hundred."
"Frank never said anything to me," I said.
"He's my dad's oldest friend."
"Frank thought it was lost in the confusion of the night," Robert said.
"He didn't want to make trouble."
Linda let go of the chair.
She walked around to the side of the table, not toward the door, just moving, the way people move when they need to feel less cornered.
"Those were complicated situations," she said.
"Every one of them.
You're making it sound like I—"
"Like you what?" Daniel said.
She stopped.
"Mom.
Say it.
Like you what?"
The silence stretched.
"I always intended to sort it out," she said.
"Things got complicated.
With money.
With your father and me.
You know how things were."
"I know how things were," Robert said.
"That's why I started writing it down."
My mom closed the notebook gently and set it in front of her.
"Linda," she said, "I want to ask you something, and I want you to think before you answer."
Linda looked at her.
"Did you take those envelopes last night because you genuinely believed you were owed that money?
Or did you take them because you knew no one would stop you on a wedding night?"
The question sat in the middle of the table like something physical.
Linda's jaw moved.
Once.
Twice.
"Both," she finally said.
It was the most honest thing I had ever heard her say.
Daniel exhaled slowly through his nose.
He reached over and put his hand on top of mine on the table.
His palm was warm.
I turned my hand over and held it.
"I want the money back," he said.
"All of it.
Not just from last night.
Everything in that notebook."
Linda's head snapped toward him.
"Daniel, that is years of—"
"I know how many years it is.
Dad just read them to us."
"We don't have that kind of money sitting—"
"Then we'll work out how," he said.
"But it's going back."
Robert reached into his jacket again.
This time he pulled out a folded sheet of paper and set it on the table.
"I had a figure drawn up," he said.
"Before tonight."
My mom unfolded it.
Read it.
Passed it to me.
It was a typed summary.
Names, amounts, a total at the bottom.
Thirty-one thousand, two hundred dollars.
Over four years.
Across nine separate events.
I set the paper down.
Linda was looking at it from where she stood.
Something in her face had shifted.
The hardness was still there, but underneath it, something else had cracked open.
Not remorse, not yet.
But the first awareness that the room had changed around her and she had not noticed until now.
"I need to make a phone call," she said.
"You can make it here," Robert said.
"I'd like some privacy."
"Linda." His voice didn't rise.
"Sit down."
She sat down.
And then my mom did something I didn't expect.
She reached across the table and poured Linda a fresh glass of wine.
"No one is calling the police tonight," my mom said.
"That's not what this is.
But we are going to finish this conversation.
And we are going to leave this table with an agreement."
Linda looked at the wine glass.
She didn't pick it up.
"What kind of agreement?" she said.
My mom folded her hands.
"The kind that keeps this family together," she said.
"If you want it to stay together."
Linda looked at Daniel.
He was watching her steadily, his hand still holding mine.
She looked at Robert.
He gave her nothing back.
She looked at me last.
I didn't look away.
"All right," she said.
May you like
Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Tell me what you want."
