Chapter 9: Barbara
She came on a Tuesday.
I saw the car from the kitchen window — a dark sedan, not Ethan's.
A hired car.
She got out slowly, the way she always moved when she wanted to appear more fragile than she was.
I called Sandra first.
"Barbara is here," I said.
"Don't let her in," Sandra said immediately.
"I know," I said.
"But I'm going to talk to her from the porch."
A pause.
"Keep your phone recording."
I went to the front door and opened it before Barbara reached the steps.
She stopped when she saw me standing in the frame.
She looked older.
Or maybe I was just seeing her clearly for the first time.
"I'm not here to fight," she said.
"All right," I said.
I didn't move from the doorway.
She looked past me into the house.
"Your father loved this place."
"Yes," I said.
"He did."
"He was a good man," she said.
"I want you to know I believed that."
"You had a strange way of showing it."
She looked down at the porch step.
"The contract was meant to protect the assets.
That's what Victor told us.
He said it was a standard arrangement.
That it would keep everything safe from — from complications."
"From me," I said.
"You thought I'd leave Ethan and take the assets with me."
She didn't deny it.
"Ethan wasn't happy," she said.
"You must have known that.
I could see it.
A mother sees these things."
"If Ethan was unhappy, he could have talked to me," I said.
"Or left.
Those were his choices."
"It wasn't that simple."
"It was exactly that simple," I said.
"What wasn't simple was forging my father's name on a legal document.
What wasn't simple was having his estate nearly stolen from him while he was dying."
Barbara's chin came up.
"Your father agreed—"
"Stop," I said.
"Raymond Cassel has already given his statement.
We know what your father agreed to and what he didn't.
We know when the document was signed and what his condition was at the time.
We know about the money wired to Cassel's daughter's account." I looked at her steadily.
"We know everything, Barbara.
That's why you're here."
Her face shifted.
The fragile performance fell away and something harder came through underneath.
"What do you want?" she said.
"Name it.
What will it take for you to let this go?"
"I'm not going to let it go."
"You could walk away with everything your father left you," she said.
"Everything.
We won't contest it.
The house, the accounts, all of it.
Just walk away from the criminal complaint."
"Three other families," I said.
"Do you know about them?"
She blinked.
"Three other families who went through exactly what my father went through," I said.
"Who lost what their parents built.
Who are still trying to recover.
This isn't only about me."
"I don't know anything about other families."
"Then you should ask Victor Pryce," I said.
"Before his attorney does."
She stood at the bottom of the porch steps and looked at me for a long moment.
The morning light was flat and grey.
A bird called somewhere in the trees behind the house.
"You were never right for my son," she said.
It came out quietly, almost to herself.
"No," I said.
"I wasn't.
You were right about that."
She turned and walked back to the car.
I watched until it reached the end of the gravel track and turned onto the road.
Then I went inside and sat at the kitchen table and put my hands flat on the wood and breathed.
My phone was still recording.
I stopped it.
Sent the file to Sandra.
She replied ten minutes later.
*She just made an offer to suppress a criminal complaint.
That's obstruction.
I'm adding it to the file.*
I made tea.
Stood at the window looking out at the lake.
My father had stood at this same window ten thousand times.
I knew the exact angle of the light in the afternoon, the way it moved across the water.
I had watched him watching it my whole childhood without knowing I was memorizing it.
I was still there when Sandra called back.
"The forensic results came in," she said.
"The signature on Ethan's contract is confirmed as fraudulent.
The ink dating puts it fourteen months after the date written on the document."
I closed my eyes.
"It's done," Sandra said.
"The foundation just collapsed under all of it."
May you like
"What happens now?" I said.
"Now," she said, "we move forward."
