Chapter 4 - The Number at the Bottom of the Page
Cole called in sick to work the next morning. He didn't ask me first, or warn me. I came downstairs at seven and he was already at the kitchen table with his laptop open and a yellow legal pad beside it, and he'd made a full pot of coffee.
"You don't have to do this," I said.
"Sit down, Mom."
I sat. He turned the laptop to face me. My online banking was up on the screen, the transaction history scrolled back three full years.
"I need you to go through this with me," he said. "Tell me which ones you actually remember approving."
I looked at the list. Transfer after transfer, most of them to Derek, some to Grant, and a few going to account numbers I didn't recognize at all.
"Cole—"
"Just start at the top. This one. Three years ago, March. Eight hundred dollars. Remember it?"
"That was Grant's car registration. Renee said they were short that month."
"This one. May, same year. Twelve hundred."
"Derek. He told me it was a medical bill."
"Did you see the bill?"
I hadn't. I never asked to see the bills. That wasn't how I'd raised those boys to feel — like they had to stand in front of me and prove they were hurting before I'd help.
"No," I said.
Cole wrote something on the pad.
We sat there for two hours. By the time we hit the bottom of the third year, he'd filled four pages front and back. At the bottom of the last page, he'd drawn a circle around a number.
$34,200.
I stared at it. "That's not right," I said.
"I added it twice."
"Cole, I would've noticed thirty-four thousand dollars leaving my—"
"Would you?" He said it gently. Not mean. Like a real question he wanted a real answer to. "Mom. Would you? You approved most of these in under a minute. Some at midnight. Some while you were standing at work."
I looked at the number again. Thirty-four thousand, two hundred dollars, over three years, approved one tap at a time — every single one of them feeling small, feeling necessary, feeling like exactly the thing a good mother does without being asked.
"I need to make a call," Cole said. He picked up his phone.
"To who?"
"Meredith Kane. I went to school with her. She's a financial advisor now. I just want her to take a look at this."
"Cole, this is family business."
"Mom." He held my eyes. "This stopped being just family business the second they started asking about your beneficiary forms."
I didn't argue.
He stepped into the hallway. I sat with the laptop and the legal pad and a number that didn't feel like it belonged to my life.
My phone lit up on the table. Renee.
I let it ring. Six times. Then it quit.
Then a text came in.
Hi Diane. Grant said you never answered his message from last night. Just checking in, making sure everything's okay. Also — sorry to bring this up now — but we were hoping to sit down with you soon and talk about the house. Nothing urgent. Just some things we'd like to get in order while there's time. Call when you can. — R
While there's time.
I read those three words twice more.
Cole came back into the kitchen and looked at my face. "What happened?"
I handed him the phone. He read it. He set it down. He picked his pen back up.
"Meredith can be here by noon," he said. "That okay?"
"What's she going to tell me?"
"The truth," Cole said. "About what this looks like from the outside."
I nodded. I looked over at the flowers he'd brought the night before, still in their cellophane, standing in a water glass I'd dug out of the cabinet. Gas-station flowers. Still holding up.
"Cole," I said. "How long have you known?"
He was quiet for a beat. He looked down at the legal pad.
"I've suspected about a year," he said. "I didn't want to say anything until I was sure. I didn't want to be the one who—" He stopped. "I didn't want to make it worse."
"You're not making it worse."
"I know," he said. "That's why I'm here."
His phone buzzed. He glanced at it. "Meredith's on her way." He looked up. "Mom — before she gets here, I need to ask you one more thing."
"What?"
"The house. Is it in your name only?"
The question landed low in my stomach.
May you like
"Yes," I said. "Why?"
"Because Renee didn't write 'your finances' or 'your situation.' She wrote 'the house.' Specifically." He tapped the pad twice. "That's not an accident."
