Chapter 4: What Raymond Said
My dad was on the phone for twenty-two minutes.
I know because I watched the clock on the microwave the entire time, standing in the kitchen with Marcus, neither of us speaking.
Felicia had moved to the far end of the counter and was facing the window again, her arms crossed, her phone in her hand.
When my dad came back into the kitchen, he set his phone on the table and sat down.
"The bank is opening a review," he said.
"They'll contact us within forty-eight hours."
Felicia turned around.
"You didn't have to do that."
"I called Raymond first," my dad said, as if she hadn't spoken.
"He answered on the second ring."
Her expression shifted.
"What did he say?"
"He said you told him the money was yours.
That it came from a savings account you'd been building for years." My dad looked at her steadily.
"He said you told him Kendra had her own separate fund and wouldn't be affected."
The room was very quiet.
"So he didn't know," Marcus said.
"He says he didn't know." My dad leaned back in the chair.
"He also says he can't return it.
He used it to settle the mortgage arrears and pay off two other debts.
It's gone."
I sat down.
I hadn't realized I was still standing.
Ninety thousand dollars.
Gone.
Forty on a car sitting in the driveway.
Fifty wired to a man I'd met twice at family dinners.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"That depends on Felicia," my dad said.
She looked at him.
"You can agree to repay it," he said.
"Every dollar.
On a schedule we put in writing, with a lawyer present.
Or the bank review becomes a police matter, and we let that process go where it goes."
"You would do that to me?" she said.
"You would call the police on your own wife?"
"You took money that belonged to my daughter.
Money her mother left her." His voice didn't waver.
"What would you have me do?"
"I would have you act like a husband."
"I would have you act like you had any right to that account." He said it without heat.
That was the part that was hardest to watch — he wasn't angry anymore.
He was just done.
"You didn't ask me.
You didn't tell me.
You moved ninety thousand dollars and you let me sit at dinner with you every night for eleven days without saying a word."
Felicia's jaw tightened.
"I was going to tell you when the time was right."
"The time was before you touched it."
Marcus pulled out a chair and sat down across from his mother.
"Mom.
Listen to what he's saying.
He's giving you a way out.
Take it."
"I am not going to be spoken to like a crjminal in my own home."
"It's my home," my dad said.
Simply.
Without cruelty.
"My name is on the deed.
I've lived here for nineteen years.
You've lived here for four."
That landed.
I watched it land.
Felicia set her phone on the counter.
She picked it up again.
She was doing the recalculation again, I could see it — running through her options, testing each one, looking for the angle that still worked in her favor.
"I need to call my sister," she said.
"You can do that," my dad said.
"But before you make any calls, I need your answer.
Repayment agreement, or bank review proceeds."
"Those aren't the only two options."
"They are the only two I'm offering."
She looked at Marcus.
He looked back at her and didn't say anything.
She looked at me.
I didn't say anything either.
She picked up her phone and walked out of the kitchen toward the back of the house.
My dad watched her go.
Then he looked at me.
"Are you okay?"
I thought about it honestly.
"No."
"Neither am I." He reached across the table and put his hand over mine for a moment.
Then he sat back.
"We're going to fix this, Kendra."
"How?
The money's gone."
"The money can be replaced." He said it like a fact, not a comfort.
"What she did can't be undone, but the money can be replaced.
That's what I'm focused on right now."
From the back of the house, I could hear Felicia's voice — low, urgent, fast.
She was on the phone.
Marcus was staring at the car keys on the counter.
"I'll sell it," he said quietly.
"The car.
Whatever it gets, it goes to Kendra."
My dad looked at him for a long moment.
"That's your call to make."
"I know." Marcus didn't look up.
"I'm making it."
May you like
None of us spoke after that.
We sat in the kitchen and listened to Felicia's voice moving through the walls, and none of us could make out the words, and that felt like the most dangerous part of all.
