Chapter 6: What My Father Knew
I stepped into the hallway to answer it.
"Dad."
"Vivian." His voice was careful.
Measured.
The way it always got when he was choosing his words before he said them.
"Richard called me."
"I know."
"He said it was time."
"It is."
A pause.
"How are you feeling?
The baby—"
"We're both fine.
I'm fine." I leaned against the wall.
The study door was still closed.
I could hear Julian's voice behind it, low and indistinct.
"Dad, what did Richard tell you exactly?"
"He told me about the transfers.
About the brother." Another pause.
"He also told me Julian didn't know."
"He didn't."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
My father was quiet for a moment.
"That changes things, Vivian."
"I know it does."
"It doesn't change what Eleanor did.
But it changes what Julian is."
I looked at the closed study door.
"I know, Dad."
"What do you want to do?"
That was the question.
The real one.
Not what Richard recommended, not what the law allowed, not what Eleanor deserved.
What did I want.
"I want to finish tonight first," I said.
"Then I'll know."
"All right." He paused again.
"I'm coming to New York."
"Dad, you don't have to—"
"I'm coming.
I'll be there tomorrow afternoon.
Richard is already booking the flight." His voice softened slightly.
"You shouldn't be alone in that apartment with those two people tonight."
"I'm not alone," I said.
"I have a very good attorney and a five-million-dollar deed."
He laughed quietly.
It was the first warm sound I had heard all evening.
"Your mother would have been proud of you," he said.
I didn't answer that.
I couldn't, quite.
"Tomorrow," I said.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
I ended the call and stood in the hallway for a moment.
Through the wall I could hear Eleanor moving in the kitchen.
The scrape of a chair.
The sound of water running.
Small, domestic sounds that felt completely wrong for the night we were having.
I pushed open the study door.
Julian was sitting at the desk.
His laptop was open.
He had a yellow legal pad in front of him and he had been writing on it, but when I came in he turned it face-down.
"Was that Richard?" he asked.
"My father."
He nodded slowly.
"I didn't know you were still close with him."
"We've always been close."
"You never talked about him."
"You never asked."
He absorbed that.
Looked at the legal pad.
"I've been going through our bank statements.
The joint account.
The one I set up for household expenses." He paused.
"I thought you had access to it."
"I never used it."
"I know that now." He turned the legal pad over.
He had written a column of numbers down the left side.
"Vivian.
I put forty-three thousand dollars into that account over the past eighteen months for household expenses.
Groceries.
Utilities.
The car.
Your prenatal appointments."
"I paid for all of those myself."
"I know." His voice was very quiet.
"Where did that forty-three thousand go?"
"I don't know yet.
Richard is still pulling the records."
Julian set the pen down.
"I want to talk to Richard."
"He's available.
I'll give you his number."
"Tonight?"
"He said to call whenever."
Julian looked at me.
In the lamp light of the study he looked older than he had at dinner.
Not in a bad way.
In the way that happens when a person stops performing and just becomes themselves.
"I said things tonight," he said.
"At the table.
I said things that I—" He stopped.
"There's no version of that I can walk back."
"No," I agreed.
"There isn't."
"I meant them when I said them." He looked at his hands.
"I think that's the part that matters most.
Not that I said them.
That I meant them."
I didn't help him with that.
It wasn't my job to make it easier.
"My father lands tomorrow afternoon," I said.
"He's coming to help me figure out the next steps."
Julian looked up.
"Next steps."
"For the apartment.
For the finances.
For everything that needs to be sorted out."
He nodded slowly.
"Are you going to ask me to leave?"
I looked at him for a long moment.
At the legal pad.
At the pen he had set down so carefully.
"I'm going to talk to my father first," I said.
"And to Richard."
I left him in the study and went back to the kitchen.
Eleanor was still at the table.
She had not touched the ramen.
She had not moved the envelope.
She looked up when I came in.
"Your father is coming," she said.
It wasn't a question.
She must have heard my side of the call.
"Yes."
"He'll want to take you away from here."
"He'll want to make sure I'm all right."
Eleanor looked at the envelope on the table.
"I want you to know," she said slowly, "that everything I did, I did for my son."
"I know you believe that."
"It's the truth."
"Eleanor." I sat down across from her.
"You took money meant for your grandchild's future and sent it to a man who was already asking for more by Friday.
That is not something you did for Julian.
That is something you did because Derek asked and you couldn't say no to him.
You never could."
Her jaw tightened.
"The question," I said, "is whether Julian is going to see it the same way once Richard finishes pulling the records."
She looked at me steadily.
"And what will you do if he does?"
I stood up.
Began clearing the ramen bowls from the table.
"I haven't decided yet," I said.
But my phone was already showing a new email from Richard.
Subject line: *Full audit complete.
Call me when you can.*
I set the bowls in the sink and stared at the subject line.
May you like
*Full audit complete.*
Whatever was in that email, it was worse than the bank statements.
