Chapter 11
The receipt was marked with your mother’s initials.”
“Marked by whom?”
“My father’s bookkeeper.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t have it.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“I had a copy.”
“Had?”
“My father found out I was looking into it.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing.”
I gave him a disbelieving laugh.
“Nothing?”
“He asked me to stop.”
“And you did.”
“For a while.”
The words should have made me furious, but his expression stopped me.
He looked ashamed, not of being caught, but of the years he had spent convincing himself that waiting was the same as protecting people.
“What happened to the copy?”
I asked.
“My father took it.”
“Then what do you have?”
“An account number.
A date.
Your mother’s initials.”
“And you kept that from me too.”
“Yes.”
The rooftop door rattled in the wind behind us.
None of us moved toward it.
I thought of my mother’s final years—the careful way she counted cash, the way she avoided banks, the old metal box she kept beneath folded towels in the linen closet.
I had assumed she was simply cautious.
My aunt had called it pride.
My mother had called it planning.
After she died, I had found the box empty.
I had never asked why.
“Did you know my mother was sick?”
I asked.
Dominic’s face softened.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She came to the King house once, six years ago.
She asked to see my father.”
“Six years ago?”
My voice broke on the words.
“My mother died six years ago.”
“I know.”
“What did she want?”
“I don’t know.
My father met her alone.”
“You didn’t listen at the door?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“Where were you?”
“Chicago.
I was handling a shipment dispute in Milwaukee.”
The mention of shipments sounded like a reminder of the world he occupied, a world I had observed for years without ever truly entering.
I hated that it had intersected with my family before I knew it existed.
“When did you see her?”
“Afterward.
She was leaving the house.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me to take care of Vanessa.”
“That’s all?”
“She also said that some debts weren’t meant to be repaid with money.”
A chill moved through me that had nothing to do with the temperature.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know what it meant.”
“You could have asked.”
“I did.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
“And he lied?”