Chapter 4: What Diane Found Next
Diane's second call had come at four-seventeen in the afternoon.
I had been folding laundry.
My youngest, Rosie, was sitting on the floor beside me, sorting socks into pairs the way she always did, very seriously, as if it mattered enormously which sock went with which.
I stepped into the hallway to take the call.
"I pulled the full permit history on Gary's company," Diane said.
"The drainage project wasn't the only one."
I leaned against the wall.
"How many?"
"Six permits over four years.
Three different commissioners.
Two of them are still sitting."
"Are the contribution records attached to all of them?"
"Not all.
But enough." She paused.
"There's something else."
I waited.
"One of the projects — a retaining wall contract on the east side of the county — the work was never completed.
The permit was closed out as finished.
The county paid the full invoice.
But the wall was never built."
The laundry sat untouched on the bed.
"He invoiced for work that wasn't done?"
"That's what the site inspection records suggest.
Someone signed off on completion.
The signature doesn't match the inspector assigned to that project."
"Diane," I said slowly.
"How did you find all of this?"
"I have a contact at the county assessor's office," she said.
"She noticed the drainage permit when I asked her to pull the boundary records.
She started looking on her own.
She called me this morning."
"Does she want to report it?"
"She already has," Diane said.
"She filed a formal complaint with the county ethics board two hours ago.
She didn't ask my permission.
She just did it."
I stood in the hallway for a long moment.
Rosie appeared in the doorway, holding up two mismatched socks with a look of deep concern.
"These don't go together, Mama."
"I know, sweetheart.
Just a minute."
I put the phone back to my ear.
"Does Gary know?"
"Not yet.
But he will.
These things move faster than people expect once a formal complaint is filed."
After I hung up, I stood there thinking about Gary sitting at my kitchen table the night before, asking what I wanted.
He had thought this was a negotiation between neighbors.
He had thought the document I held was the whole picture.
He had no idea the picture had already grown much larger than either of us.
The next morning, Gary's contractor called as promised.
He was polite and professional.
He said they could begin assessment of the pool restoration within the week.
I said that was fine.
I didn't mention Diane.
I didn't mention the ethics complaint.
I didn't mention the retaining wall that was never built.
I just said thank you and ended the call.
But two hours later, Katherine knocked on my door again.
This time she was alone.
No screaming.
No shaking hands.
She was wearing a plain gray cardigan and her hair was pulled back, and she looked ten years older than she had two nights ago.
I opened the door and waited.
"Can I come in?" she said.
I stepped aside.
She sat at the same kitchen table.
I made two cups of tea without asking and set one in front of her.
She wrapped both hands around the mug and looked down at it.
"I didn't know," she said.
"About the permits.
About any of it."
I sat across from her.
"I believe you."
She looked up.
She hadn't expected that.
"I'm not your enemy, Katherine," I said.
"I never was."
Her jaw tightened.
"I treated you terribly."
"Yes.
You did."
She looked back down at the mug.
"The pool.
The gnomes.
The roses." She shook her head slowly.
"I don't even know why I did half of it."
I didn't fill the silence for her.
"Gary works all the time," she said finally.
"He's never home.
I rattle around in that house and I just — I pick at things.
I know I do it.
I don't know how to stop."
"That's something to talk to someone about," I said.
"Not something to take out on my children."
She flinched.
"I know."
We sat for a moment without speaking.
"What's going to happen to him?" she asked.
I looked at her carefully.
"I don't know yet.
That's not in my hands anymore."
Something shifted in her face.
"What does that mean?"
I wrapped my hands around my own mug.
"It means the pool is the least of your problems right now, Katherine."
She stared at me.
May you like
And I watched the moment she understood that the document I had shown her husband was not the end of the story.
It was the beginning of someone else's.
