Chapter 8: Monday Morning
I called Carol Simmons at eight o'clock on Monday morning from my kitchen table with a cup of tea I hadn't touched.
"I wasn't sure I'd hear from you," she said.
"I wasn't sure either," I said.
"But I have documents."
I told her everything.
She listened without interrupting, which I appreciated.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"The authorization clause alone is a civil matter," she said.
"Possibly more, depending on whether he exercised it in ways that aren't visible yet.
The vendor charges are more serious.
If he submitted work orders under your account number without your knowledge, that's unauthorized use of financial credentials."
"What does that mean practically?"
"It means I'd like to see the documents before I tell you what it means practically." A pause.
"Can you come in Wednesday?"
"Yes."
"Bring everything.
Contract, vendor call records, land sale documents, anything with his name on it."
I looked at the folded contract on the table in front of me.
"I have everything."
Nathan called at nine.
I let it ring once, then answered.
"How are you?" he asked.
"I'm all right," I said.
"How are you?"
A long pause.
"I don't know yet." Another pause.
"Tiffany and I talked until three in the morning.
She told me more.
About other things her father has done.
Other times she looked the other way because she didn't know how not to."
"I'm sorry," I said.
And I meant it.
"She's not a bad person," Nathan said.
"I need you to know I believe that."
"I believe it too."
"But I don't know if that's enough." His voice was careful and tired.
"I don't know what enough looks like right now."
"You don't have to know yet," I said.
"Are you making the calls?"
"I already made one.
I have a meeting Wednesday."
He was quiet.
"Okay."
"Nathan.
What happened to me at that wedding — your wife sl@pped me and your father-in-law defrauded me.
Those things happened regardless of whether Tiffany is a good person.
I need you to understand that I'm not doing this to hurt her."
"I know," he said.
"I know that, Mom."
"I'm doing it because Thomas's land is gone and I need to understand exactly how that happened and whether anything can be done about it."
"I know," he said again.
Softer this time.
After we hung up, I sat at the table for a while.
The tea had gone cold.
Outside the window, the garden was very still, the way it always was in early morning before the birds started.
Thomas had planted the rose bushes along the far fence the summer before he got sick.
They were overgrown now, sprawling past the fence line in the way he'd always said he'd trim them and never did.
I had never trimmed them either.
I liked them the way he'd left them.
I thought about the twelve acres.
The creek that ran along the eastern edge.
The way the light came through the trees there in October, gold and slow, the kind of light that made you feel like time was something you could hold.
Richard Calloway would put a road through it.
Or a car park.
Or a row of identical houses with identical gardens.
I picked up my phone and called my attorney.
"Dorothy," I said.
"I need an appointment this week.
Something has happened and I need to understand my options."
"Of course," Dorothy said.
May you like
"Are you all right?"
"I'm getting there," I said.
