Chapter 5: What Daniel's Mother Had Kept to Herself
Patricia answered on the second ring.
It was nearly ten o'clock.
She was already in for the night — Daniel could tell by the way her voice was slightly muffled, the television quiet in the background.
She'd been expecting a casual check-in.
Not this.
"Mom," he said.
"I need you to be honest with me."
A pause.
"Daniel, what's happened?"
"Did you know what Megan did to the car?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"I heard there was an accident with the children—"
"It wasn't an accident." He put the phone on speaker and set it on the table between us.
"She planned it.
She told them exactly what to do.
We have her on recording."
Silence.
"Mom."
"I didn't know she was going to do that," Patricia said.
Her voice was careful.
Measured in a way that told me she was choosing every word.
"But you knew something," Daniel said.
"I knew she was angry.
About the car.
About a lot of things."
"What things?"
Patricia sighed.
It was the sigh of someone who had been holding something for a long time and was tired of the weight of it.
"Megan has always felt that you got more," she said quietly.
"More attention.
More support.
When your father and I helped you with the down payment on the house, she—"
"We paid that back," Daniel said.
"Every dollar."
"I know.
But Megan didn't see it that way.
She saw two people who always seemed to land on their feet, and she couldn't understand why things were harder for her."
"So she decided to make things harder for us," I said.
Patricia didn't answer immediately.
"Did you know about the job?" I asked.
"The marketing position I applied for?"
The silence that followed was different from the others.
Heavier.
"Megan mentioned she'd spoken to someone," Patricia said finally.
"I told her to stay out of it.
I thought she had."
Daniel's hand was flat on the table.
"You knew she'd interfered with my wife's job application and you didn't tell us."
"I didn't know for certain—"
"Mom." His voice was quiet.
That was worse than if he'd raised it.
"That's not good enough."
"Daniel, she's my daughter.
I was trying to keep the peace."
"Whose peace?" I said.
"Because it hasn't been ours."
The television in Patricia's background clicked off.
"I'm sorry," she said.
And I believed she meant it.
But sorry and accountable are two different things, and we all knew it.
"I need you to come over tomorrow," Daniel said.
"Not to talk about Megan.
To talk about what happens next.
Because this isn't something I'm willing to let go."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to make sure she pays for the car.
And I'm going to make sure the rest of the family understands what she's been doing."
"Daniel, if you do that—"
"Then that's what happens," he said.
"She made her choices.
Now she has to live with them."
He ended the call.
We sat in the quiet for a moment.
Then he looked at me.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For all of it.
For not seeing it sooner."
"You couldn't have known."
"I should have looked harder." He reached across the table and took my hand.
"The job, the studio, the car — she took things from us.
Real things.
And my mother knew some of it and said nothing."
I squeezed his hand.
"We know now."
"Yeah." He looked at the dark window.
"And now Megan is going to find out what happens when someone actually pushes back."
May you like
What neither of us knew yet was that Megan wasn't waiting to find out.
She was already making her next move.
