Chapter 6: What She Said at the Corner Table
We met Daniel the next morning at the same restaurant, before it opened.
He let us in through the side entrance and led us to the corner table — the one my mother had always chosen, he said.
Small.
Set slightly apart from the others.
A window beside it that looked out onto the street.
He brought coffee without asking and sat down across from us.
"I've been thinking about whether to say this since last night," he said.
"I kept going back and forth.
But then I thought — she trusted me with the envelope.
I think she would have wanted me to tell you the rest."
"Tell us," I said.
He wrapped both hands around his mug.
"The last time she came in, she was having a bad day.
I could tell as soon as she walked through the door.
She was moving carefully.
She sat down and she didn't order right away, which wasn't like her.
She just looked out the window for a while."
He paused.
"I asked if she was all right.
She said she was tired.
Not sick-tired — she was clear about that.
She said she was tired of worrying."
"About what?" Paul asked.
"About her daughter." Daniel looked at me.
"About you.
She said she'd found something out.
Something that had been going on for a while without her knowing.
She didn't tell me the details.
But she said she was scared that by the time you found out, it would be too late for you to protect yourself."
My throat tightened.
"She said you were too trusting.
She said it like it was something she loved about you and something that frightened her at the same time."
I looked down at my coffee.
"She also said something else." He hesitated.
"She said Christina wasn't the only one."
Paul went still beside me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I don't know exactly.
She didn't explain it.
She just said — there's more than one person your daughter needs to watch out for.
And then she stopped herself, like she'd said more than she meant to." He looked at me steadily.
"I've thought about it a lot since then.
I don't know if she meant someone else in the family.
I don't know if she meant something specific.
But I thought you should know she said it."
The restaurant was quiet around us.
Chairs still upturned on tables.
Morning light coming in flat and grey through the windows.
"Did she say anything else?" I asked.
"She said she was sorry she couldn't fix it for you herself." His voice dropped slightly.
"She said that was the hardest part.
Knowing she was running out of time and not being able to finish what she'd started."
I pressed my hand flat against the table.
"She finished it," I said.
"She gave me everything I needed.
She just needed someone to hold onto it for her."
Daniel nodded slowly.
"I think that's why she picked me," he said.
"She knew I wouldn't lose it.
She knew I owed her."
"You didn't owe her anything," I said.
"She didn't help you so you'd owe her."
"I know." He almost smiled.
"That's exactly what she said when I told her the same thing."
We sat quietly for a moment.
Then Paul said, "She mentioned someone else.
Someone besides Christina.
Do you have any idea who she might have meant?"
"No.
I've turned it over a hundred times.
She didn't give me a name."
I thought about the list in the envelope.
Eight names.
Discrepancies beside each one.
I had assumed Christina had acted alone — that she had been the one moving the money, the one who had found a way to skim from the fund without anyone noticing.
But a fund with nine thousand dollars in it, managed informally, passed through multiple hands — it wouldn't have been easy for one person to redirect that much without someone else either helping or looking away.
"I need to go through the documents properly," I said.
"All of them.
Every transaction."
"Do you want help?" Daniel asked.
"I'm not an accountant.
But I've got time, and I'm good with details."
I looked at him.
A man my mother had fed soup to on a winter night thirty years ago.
A man she had trusted enough to hold her last letter.
"Yes," I said.
"I'd like that."
He nodded.
Refilled my coffee without being asked.
On the drive home, Paul was quiet for several miles.
Then he said, "She said Christina wasn't the only one."
"I heard her."
"Who else would have had access to that fund?"
I stared at the road ahead.
There were three people who had managed the contributions.
Christina had been one of them.
The second was a cousin who had moved abroad two years ago and had no reason to be involved.
The third was Paul's mother.
May you like
I didn't say it out loud.
But Paul's hands tightened slightly on the wheel, and I knew he was thinking exactly the same thing.
