Chapter 10: Friday
My father called at nine in the morning.
"Come to the house," he said.
"Alone."
"Miranda comes with me."
A pause.
"Fine."
He was standing when we arrived.
Not sitting in his chair by the window, not in the careful cardigan.
He was standing in the middle of the sitting room in his ordinary clothes, and he looked like a man who had not slept in several days.
Hartley was there.
He was seated on the sofa — a compact man in his late sixties, with the kind of careful stillness that comes from long practice in rooms where things are being decided.
He nodded when we walked in as if we were arriving for a routine meeting.
Miranda stopped in the doorway.
"Why is he here?"
"Gerald is here to facilitate," my father said.
"He's here because you think having a solicitor in the room protects you," I said.
"It doesn't.
He's the one who filed the forged waiver.
His presence here is not a comfort."
Hartley's expression didn't change.
"I understand there have been some concerns raised about past transactions.
I'm here to help clarify—"
"You're here to help my father offer us something that stops us from going further," I said.
"So let's skip the facilitation.
What's the offer?"
My father looked at Hartley.
Hartley gave a small nod.
"The $75,000 inheritance," my father said.
"Restored in full to your account.
The refinancing on the house reversed, title returned to you without encumbrance.
Miranda's $22,000 returned."
"And Diane's $25,000?" I said.
My father's jaw tightened.
"Diane's situation is separate."
"Diane's situation is the same situation.
Her money was taken the same way mine was.
The same forged document.
The same solicitor." I looked at Hartley.
"The same man."
Hartley cleared his throat.
"The matter of the Diane Pearce claim is—"
"Is what?" Miranda said.
"Complicated?
Because it seems very simple from where I'm standing.
You filed a document you knew was forged.
That's not complicated.
That's a crjme."
Hartley's careful stillness cracked slightly.
He looked at my father.
"Diane's $25,000," I said again.
"In the offer or we leave."
My father walked to the window.
He stood with his back to us for a moment.
"Fine," he said.
"And a full accounting of the business.
Every account.
Every transaction.
Everything connected to Robert Marsh and every payment made through that structure."
He turned around.
"That is not part of this."
"It is now."
"You don't know what you're asking."
"I know exactly what I'm asking.
I know about Sandra Marsh.
I know about the address.
I know about the payments." I kept my voice level.
"I know there's a second child you've been supporting through a business structure designed to keep his existence invisible.
And I know Hartley has been involved in that structure too."
Hartley stood up.
"I think we should take a short break—"
"Sit down," Miranda said.
He sat down.
My father looked at me.
The tiredness I had seen before was still there, but underneath it now was something else.
Something that looked, for the first time, like the beginning of understanding what was actually happening.
"If I give you the accounting," he said slowly, "what happens with it?"
"That depends on what's in it."
"And if it goes further than you expect?"
"Then we deal with what's actually there.
Not what we wish was there."
He looked at our mother.
She was in the armchair again.
She had been looking at the window since we arrived.
She did not look back at him.
"Gerald," he said quietly.
"I think you should leave."
Hartley looked up sharply.
"Arthur—"
"I said leave."
A long pause.
Hartley picked up his briefcase.
He walked to the door without looking at either of us.
He paused in the doorway.
"Arthur.
Think carefully."
"I have been thinking carefully for forty years," my father said.
"It hasn't helped.
Go home, Gerald."
Hartley left.
The room was very quiet.
My father sat down in his chair.
He looked smaller in it than he ever had.
"I'll give you the accounting," he said.
"All of it.
I'll sign whatever Patricia needs.
I'll restore the money." He paused.
"I would ask — I am asking — that you consider what happens to your mother.
Whatever I've done, she has been a good mother to you both.
She doesn't deserve to be caught in this."
"She gave a statement," I said.
"She told the truth.
That's the best thing she could have done for herself."
He nodded slowly.
"I know."
Miranda spoke for the first time in several minutes.
"The other child.
The one through Sandra Marsh.
Does he know about us?"
Our father looked at her.
"No."
"Does he know you're his father?"
A pause.
"Yes."
"Then he deserves to know the rest," Miranda said.
"When the time is right.
He deserves to know the truth."
Our father closed his eyes.
May you like
"Yes," he said.
"He does."
