Chapter 4: Rachel's Side of the Wall
Rachel called at nine-seventeen.
Iris was in the bassinet beside me.
I had the lamp on low and a notepad on my knee.
"How long have you known?" I asked.
"About the skimming?
Six weeks." Her voice was different than I expected.
Flat.
Tired.
Not the sister who sent guilt-laced texts.
Someone else.
"I started noticing the amounts were wrong.
I'd ask Mom for help with rent, she'd say she sent it, but the landlord would call me two weeks later.
I thought I was losing my mind."
"You weren't losing your mind."
"I know that now." A pause.
"Elena, I need to tell you something and I need you to not hang up."
I tightened my grip on the phone.
"Go ahead."
"I didn't ask for most of those transfers.
The ones you sent me over the years.
The gaming consoles, the credit card payments, the car — I didn't ask for half of it.
Mom told me you offered.
She said you called her and said you felt guilty about being away and you wanted to help."
The notepad slipped off my knee.
"She told you I offered."
"Every time.
She'd say, 'Elena called, she wants to send something for the kids.' I thought you were being generous.
I thought—" Rachel's voice cracked.
"I thought you actually wanted to.
And then when you stopped answering, I thought you'd finally gotten sick of me.
That's what she told me.
That you said you were done with the family."
I stared at the ceiling.
Twelve years.
Diane had been standing between us for twelve years, pulling money from both directions, keeping us both angry at each other, keeping us both dependent on her as the translator.
"She controlled the story," I said.
"She controlled everything." Rachel exhaled.
"The account she opened in your name — I found paperwork for it in her house six weeks ago.
That's when I started putting it together.
Elena, she's been doing this since before Dad left.
There are older accounts.
I don't know how far back it goes."
"Older accounts."
"I found statements going back to when you were nineteen.
When you first enlisted and started getting a salary."
Nineteen.
I had enlisted at nineteen because Diane told me the family needed the stability.
She had sat across from me at the kitchen table and told me the military would be good for me, good for my future.
She had driven me to the recruiter's office herself.
"Rachel." My voice came out very carefully.
"Did she ever tell you I didn't want to enlist?"
A long pause.
"She told me you were desperate to go.
That you wanted to get away from the family."
I closed my eyes.
Iris stirred.
I reached over without looking and rested my hand on the edge of the bassinet.
She settled.
"I enlisted because she told me we were going to lose the house," I said.
"She said if I didn't start contributing, we'd be on the street by spring.
I was nineteen years old and I believed her."
Rachel didn't say anything for a long time.
When she spoke, her voice was very small.
"She told me the same thing.
Different version.
She said you'd gotten a girl pregnant and you needed to disappear before it became a scandal.
That's why she said you left so fast."
"I was not—" I stopped.
Breathed.
"I was not pregnant.
I didn't even have a boyfriend."
"I know that now."
We sat in silence for a moment.
Outside, a car passed.
Iris breathed steadily beside me.
"I want to meet her," Rachel said quietly.
"Iris.
I want to meet my niece."
Something in my chest shifted.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But the beginning of something that might become it, given time.
"Come this weekend," I said.
"Come Saturday."
"Okay." Another pause.
"Elena — what are you going to do about Mom?"
I looked down at the notepad on the floor.
I picked it up.
The page was blank.
I hadn't written a single thing.
"I'm going to let the lawyer finish what he started," I said.
"And then I'm going to let the evidence speak."
"She'll fight it."
"I know." I clicked the pen.
"But she doesn't know what else I found."
Rachel went quiet.
"What else did you find?"
I looked at the folder on the table.
The flagged page on top.
The one my lawyer had sent over that morning, before Diane arrived, before any of this had happened.
The one I hadn't shown Diane.
The one that wasn't about the accounts at all.
"I'll tell you Saturday," I said.
"When you're here.
When I can show you."
After I hung up, I sat for a long time without moving.
Iris breathed.
The lamp hummed.
And somewhere across town, Diane was making calls of her own.
I could feel it.
The way you feel weather changing before the sky shows it.
May you like
She wasn't finished.
She was just regrouping.
