Chapter 8: The Things That Came After
The Harbor Point letter was filed on a Monday.
By Wednesday, Gerald Foss's legal team had submitted the metadata report to a civil attorney.
By Thursday, Andrew's attorney had contacted the district attorney's office regarding the fraudulent document and the obstruction threat Rachel had made during our phone call — which I had confirmed in a written statement the same afternoon Andrew filed.
I didn't hear from Rachel directly after that Tuesday phone call.
But I heard about her.
Our mother called me on Thursday evening.
"Rachel's attorney has advised her not to contact you or Andrew," she said.
"She's been told to stop making statements."
"Good."
"She's very frightened, Claire."
"I know."
"She keeps saying you don't understand what it was like.
Growing up in that house.
Watching me favor her.
She says it made her—" Mom stopped.
"She says it made her the way she is."
I sat with that for a moment.
"Does she think that makes it all right?"
"No.
I don't think she does.
Not anymore." A pause.
"She asked me to tell you she's sorry.
About Chloe."
"She can tell me herself."
"I know.
I told her that."
There was a long quiet on the line.
"Mom," I said.
"What you told me about Dad.
About what Rachel did when she was sixteen.
Are you going to tell Rachel that you told me?"
"I already did," she said.
"This morning."
"How did she respond?"
"She cried," Mom said.
"For a long time.
And then she said — she said she'd spent so many years being afraid that if she didn't control everything, it would all fall apart." A pause.
"I think she believed that.
I think she still does."
I didn't answer.
"That doesn't excuse it," Mom said quickly.
"No," I agreed.
"It doesn't."
The civil case moved forward through the autumn.
I wasn't a party to it — Andrew and Gerald Foss were the plaintiffs.
But I gave a deposition in October, sitting in a conference room with a court reporter and two attorneys, describing what Diane had told me, what Rachel had said on the phone, what I had observed at the wedding.
Chloe asked me once what a deposition was.
"It's when someone asks you questions and you tell the truth," I said.
"Like what I did at the wedding?"
"Exactly like that."
She seemed satisfied with this.
Andrew called me after the deposition.
"You did well," he said.
"My attorney said you were very clear."
"I just answered the questions."
"That's all anyone needed." A pause.
"How's Chloe?"
"She's fine.
She's been asking when she can see you again."
"Soon," he said.
"Tell her soon."
The settlement came in November.
Rachel did not admit wrongdoing in the formal document — her attorney had negotiated that — but she paid restitution to Gerald Foss for the value of the Harbor Point deal.
The amount was not disclosed publicly, but Andrew told me it was significant.
Significant enough that Rachel would need to liquidate assets she had accumulated carefully over several years.
She also received a formal letter from the district attorney's office regarding the obstruction threat.
No charges were filed.
But the letter existed.
And she knew it existed.
I was at school when Andrew texted me the news.
I was between classes, standing in the hallway outside my fourth-grade classroom with a stack of spelling tests under my arm.
*It's done,* he wrote.
*Thank you.
For all of it.*
I stood in the hallway for a moment.
A student from the class next door ran past me chasing a paper airplane.
A teacher called after him.
The ordinary noise of a school afternoon filled the corridor.
I typed back: *Thank you for not looking away.*
Three dots appeared.
Then: *I learned that from an eight-year-old.*
I smiled.
Put my phone in my pocket.
May you like
Picked up the spelling tests.
And walked back into my classroom.
