Chapter 3: Someone Else
My dad didn't move at first.
He looked at Marcus.
Then at the phone on the table.
Then at Felicia, who had pressed herself back against the counter like the extra two feet of distance would help her.
"What do you mean, someone else?" my dad said.
Marcus didn't answer right away.
He was still staring at the phone like he wasn't sure what he'd just read.
"Marcus." My dad's voice was quieter now, which was worse.
"What's on that phone?"
Marcus picked it up and held it out across the table.
My dad read for about ten seconds.
His jaw tightened.
He set the phone back down, face-up, and slid it toward the center of the table so everyone could see.
I leaned in.
It was a wire transfer confirmation.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Sent eleven days ago to an account under the name Raymond Osei.
"Who is Raymond Osei?" I asked.
Nobody answered me.
I looked at my dad.
He was looking at Felicia.
"Dwayne—" she started.
"Is that your brother?" he asked.
His voice was completely flat.
"Is that where my daughter's money went?
To your brother?"
Felicia's chin came up.
"Raymond needed it.
He was going to lose his house."
"So you took Kendra's college fund."
"I was going to replace it."
"With what?" Marcus said.
He wasn't defending her anymore.
He was asking a real question, and his face said he already knew there was no good answer.
"Mom.
With what?
You don't have fifty thousand dollars."
"I have the joint account—"
"That's Dad's account," I said.
"That's my dad's money."
"We are married," she said sharply.
"What is his is mine."
My dad stood up from the chair.
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
"No," he said.
"What is mine is my daughter's.
I set that money aside before you and I ever met.
It came from her mother's life insurance.
Every dollar of it."
The kitchen went completely silent.
I hadn't known that.
I hadn't known where the money came from.
My mother died when I was four.
I didn't remember her well enough to have asked.
Felicia's expression shifted.
Something moved across her face — not guilt, not quite.
More like recalculation.
"Dwayne, I didn't know—"
"Yes you did," Marcus said quietly.
He wasn't looking at her with anger.
He was looking at her like he was seeing something clearly for the first time and didn't like what he saw.
"He told us both when we got married.
I was there.
He sat us both down and told us that account was Kendra's and it wasn't to be touched."
Felicia said nothing.
"You told me it was your savings," Marcus said again.
"You looked me in the eye and told me that."
"I was protecting you from—"
"From what?" His voice cracked slightly on the word.
"From knowing you took a dead woman's money and gave it to Uncle Raymond for a house he'll probably lose anyway in six months?"
Felicia flinched.
My dad walked to the counter and picked up his own phone.
"I'm calling Raymond."
"Dwayne, please don't—"
"I'm calling him right now.
And then I'm calling the bank."
Felicia stepped forward and put her hand on his arm.
"If you call the bank, they'll flag it.
It'll become a legal matter.
You don't want that."
My dad looked down at her hand on his arm.
Then he looked at her.
"I think," he said carefully, "that you should take your hand off me."
She did.
He walked out of the kitchen.
I heard him on the phone in the hallway, his voice low and controlled, asking to be transferred to the fraud department.
I stood in the kitchen with Marcus and Felicia.
The car keys were still on the counter.
The phone was still face-up on the table.
The wire transfer confirmation was still on the screen.
Marcus looked at me.
For the first time since I'd known him — four years, since my dad and Felicia got together — he looked like he didn't know what to say.
"I'm sorry," he said finally.
"I didn't know it was her money."
I believed him.
I didn't know what to do with that yet, but I believed him.
Felicia picked up her phone from the table and turned it face-down.
From the hallway, I heard my dad say: "Yes.
May you like
I need to report an unauthorized transfer."
Felicia closed her eyes.
