Chapter 5 - The Son in the Middle
I didn't shout. Somewhere in the long middle of a life you learn that a quiet voice cuts deeper than a raised one.
"I need you to listen to me. Every word."
"Mom, she said she was worried about you. She said you might be confused, that after a shock like this somebody could come along and take advantage—"
"Peter."
He stopped.
"Your aunt told your father I cheated on him. She said she had letters. Photographs. She used that lie to squeeze him for eleven years."
The quiet on the line changed shape.
"She — what?"
"He wrote it all down. He left the letter with a different attorney, not Mr. Dalton, because he knew Vivian would be watching everything attached to the official estate. He spent nine years protecting me from her without telling me, because he knew the second I knew, she'd find a way to use me to get to it."
"Mom, I swear I didn't know any of that."
"I know you didn't." I looked through the windshield at the empty street. "But you told her where I went this morning. So I need to hear you say whether you're going to keep doing it."
"No. God, no. She made it sound like she was on your side."
"Vivian has never been on anyone's side but her own." I started the engine. "Here's what you're going to do for me. You're not going to tell her we talked. You're not going to tell her one thing I just said. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"I mean it, Peter."
"I know. I know. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
And I believed him. Peter was our middle child, and he had always been the one a confident voice could steer. Vivian had known exactly which of my three to call first.
"Come to dinner Thursday," I said. "Bring the kids. We'll talk it through properly then."
I hung up and sat a moment. Then I opened the second letter and read it right there, engine running, heater just starting to breathe.
His hand again. Fewer words this time.
"Margaret. If you're reading this one, you've already met Whitfield and you already know most of it. So I'll only say what I should have said out loud years ago.
Vivian is not going to stop. She never has. The only thing that's changed is that she has nothing left to hold over me, so everything she does now she'll aim straight at you.
You are stronger than she has ever believed you are. You are stronger than I gave you credit for at times, and I am ashamed of that.
There's one more thing she doesn't know about. I didn't put it in the first letter because I wasn't sure you'd be ready for it right away. Ask Whitfield about the recordings. He'll know.
I have loved you every day of sixty-nine years. I'm sorry I made you carry the end of this by yourself.
— Arthur"
I folded it.
The recordings.
I reached for my phone to call Whitfield back — and stopped.
A car had pulled in behind me. Parked. The engine went quiet.
I watched the mirror. The driver's door opened.
Vivian stepped out, purse over her arm, wearing the same composed face she'd worn in that hallway.
She came to my window and tapped it once with a knuckle.
May you like
I lowered it two inches.
"I thought that was your car," she said, pleasant as Sunday. "What on earth are you doing all the way over here, Margaret?"
