Chapter 5: What He Did With the Years I Gave Him
I sat at the kitchen table and waited.
The party outside had not resumed.
Through the glass doors I could see clusters of guests standing in uncertain groups, some already gathering their things, some just standing there the way people do when they've witnessed something they don't quite know how to leave.
Dorothy came in first.
She sat across from me without being asked and folded her hands on the table.
"How much do you know?" she said.
"Tell me about the money."
She looked at her hands.
"I only found out six months ago.
Julian came to me for a loan.
Fifty thousand dollars." She paused.
"He said it was for a business investment that had gone sideways.
He said he needed to cover it before you noticed."
"Before I noticed," I repeated.
"He said you managed the household accounts but not the business accounts.
He said there was a gap he needed to fill quietly." She looked up.
"I gave it to him, Nora.
I'm ashamed of that.
I gave it to him because he's my son and I believed him."
The kitchen door opened.
Julian walked in, followed closely by Marcus.
Selina stayed outside.
Through the glass I could see her sitting alone at the edge of the pool, her feet in the water, staring at nothing.
Julian pulled out a chair and sat down.
He looked at his mother first.
"You didn't have to do that out there."
"Yes," Dorothy said.
"I did."
He looked at me.
The charm was still gone.
What was left was something more honest — and somehow more dangerous.
A man with nothing left to perform.
"The money," I said.
"Tell me."
"It's not as simple as—"
"Julian." I put both hands flat on the table.
"I have been simple for two years.
I have been patient and exhausted and silent for two years.
I am done being simple.
Tell me about the money."
He leaned back.
Ran a hand through his hair.
And for a moment he looked not like the man who had mocked me in front of sixty people two hours ago, but like someone genuinely cornered.
"When I lost my job," he started, "I didn't tell you everything."
"What didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't lose the job, exactly." He stopped.
"I was asked to leave.
There was an investigation.
A compliance issue."
Marcus shifted in his chair.
"What kind of compliance issue?" I said.
Julian looked at his brother.
Something passed between them — the same kind of silent negotiation I'd seen between Marcus and Selina by the pool.
"Julian," I said.
"What did you do?"
"I redirected some funds." The words came out flat.
Clinical.
Like he was describing someone else's actions.
"From a client account.
It wasn't supposed to be permanent.
I was going to replace it."
"You stole from a client."
"It was a loan I made to myself without—"
"You stole from a client," I said again.
"And then you lost your job.
And then I went back to work six weeks after giving birth to cover our mortgage and our groceries and our children's school fees while you—" My voice stayed level.
I was proud of that.
"While you were doing what, exactly, during those two years?"
He didn't answer.
"Marcus," I said.
"What was your brother doing?"
Marcus looked at the table.
"Nora, this isn't—"
"He was trying to fix it," Julian said quickly.
"I was trying to make it right.
The money I took from the client — I was working to pay it back through a private arrangement.
That's what the hotel was about.
That's what the messages were about.
The contact in my phone — S — that's not Selina."
The room went very quiet.
"S is a man named Steven Carr," Julian said.
"He's a private broker.
He was helping me move money through a series of accounts to cover the original amount before the firm's annual audit."
I stared at him.
"The hotel was a meeting," he said.
"Marcus came because he was helping me coordinate the transfer.
That's why we were both there."
"And Selina?" I said.
Julian hesitated.
"Selina was there because Marcus told her it was a business dinner," Dorothy said quietly.
"She didn't know what it actually was."
I sat with that for a moment.
The story I had built over three weeks — the story of betrayal and a hotel room and a woman with a perfect silhouette — shifted slightly.
Not disappeared.
Shifted.
"So there was no affair," I said.
"No," Julian said.
"But there was theft.
And a cover-up.
And two years of lying to me about where our money was going."
He said nothing.
"And your mother's fifty thousand dollars."
He looked at Dorothy.
"I was going to pay you back."
"I know," she said.
"That's what frightens me."
I stood up from the table.
My legs were steady.
I was surprised by that.
"I'm going to need to see every account," I said.
"Personal, business, joint.
Everything.
Monday morning, before I meet with my lawyer, I want to sit down with all of it."
"Nora—"
"That's not a request, Julian."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
I walked to the kitchen door.
Through the glass, Selina was still sitting at the edge of the pool.
She hadn't moved.
Her shoes were beside her on the tiles, neatly placed together, like she'd set them there very carefully while she thought about something.
I pushed the door open and stepped outside.
May you like
I had questions for her too.
And from the way she looked up when she heard the door — like she'd been waiting — I thought she might actually have answers.
