Chapter 5
By the time Dana set the household statements on the kitchen table, Chloe was asleep upstairs with her rabbit tucked under her chin. The house had begun to smell like chicken soup and clean laundry again, but Lucy still heard every shift of the floorboards above them.
Dana tapped the open spreadsheet. “You said George kept a household budget.”
“He did. He liked things organized—as long as he was the one organizing them.”
Lucy scrolled through the entries. Groceries. School supplies. Medicine. Then, in George’s neat little notes, she found “classroom art supplies” beside a charge to Belle Beauty Supply.
The amount was two hundred and eighty-six dollars.
She checked the next statement. “Groceries,” George had written beside another charge to the same salon supplier. There were more: nail products, towels, a disinfectant order. Each one had been paid with the card Lucy had given him for Chloe and the house.
Dana leaned closer. “How many?”
“Enough.”
Lucy’s voice came out flat. She had spent years reading small changes in a patient’s face, catching the detail that mattered while someone else was still describing the pain. But these entries were worse than a missed symptom. George had written his lie down and handed it to her disguised as a school expense.
Dana slid the page back toward her. “You should save copies somewhere he can’t reach.”
“I will.”
A knock sounded at the front door.
Lucy looked toward the stairs. No movement. Chloe stayed asleep.
Dana rose, but Lucy touched her arm. “I’ve got it.”
Fiona stood on the porch with a paper cup in one hand and a smile already arranged on her face. Her salon was open in the attached storefront; the faint chemical sweetness of nail polish clung to her clothes.
“I heard Chloe’s home,” Fiona said. “I wanted to see how she was.”
“She’s resting.”
“I can be quiet.”
“No.”
Fiona’s smile tightened. She glanced past Lucy into the hall, as if the house still belonged to her in some small, familiar way. “You know, George told me you’d be upset about the money.”
Lucy didn’t step aside. “What money?”
“Whatever you found. He borrowed from the household account. It wasn’t some grand theft.” Fiona lifted her cup and took a measured sip. “We’re family.”
The phrasing struck Lucy as almost funny. Family had been George’s promise before she left, and Fiona’s excuse now.
“Dana and I were reviewing the statements,” Lucy said. “Your salon suppliers are listed as groceries and school expenses.”
Fiona’s eyes flicked toward the kitchen table. “George handled the card.”
“He did.”
“So talk to him.”
“I’m asking you.”
Fiona lowered the cup. For a moment, her expression sharpened into something less polished. “You’re the one who left.”
The words landed where Fiona meant them to. Lucy felt the old reflex flare: explain the assignment, explain the calls, explain that every night she had looked at Chloe’s face through a screen and counted the days until she could hold her again.
She let the reflex pass.
“I went to work,” Lucy said. “George agreed to care for our daughter.”
“From where I stood, he was the one doing everything while you were away.”
“Was he doing everything when Chloe was sick and alone?”
Fiona’s gaze slipped aside. Her thumb pressed hard into the paper cup, buckling it.
Lucy waited.
“He made a mistake,” Fiona said at last.
“Nearly two days alone is not a mistake I can tidy up for you.”
“I’m not asking you to tidy anything.” Fiona stepped closer, her voice dropping. “I’m saying you came home ready to blame everyone except yourself. Chloe needed you, and you chose a hospital in the middle of nowhere.”
The insult stung because Fiona had found the tender place, not because it was true. Lucy thought of Chloe’s fever-hot cheek against her shoulder, the way her daughter’s eyes had followed every adult who entered the hospital room. She would not let Fiona turn that memory into a weapon and hand it back to her.
“You don’t get to tell me what Chloe needed,” Lucy said. “And you don’t get to come into this house.”
Fiona’s smile returned, smaller and colder. “This house has always been a family place.”
“It’s my house.”
“Is it?”
Dana appeared behind Lucy, silent but close enough that Fiona noticed her. Fiona’s eyes moved between them, then settled on Lucy’s pocket.
“You still have that receipt, don’t you?” Fiona asked.
Lucy didn’t answer.
“Whatever you think it proves, you should be careful. A receipt doesn’t tell you what happened.”
“It tells me someone put my address and bank on the back of it.”
Fiona’s smile vanished. The change lasted only a heartbeat, but Lucy saw it.
Then Fiona’s features smoothed again. “You’ve always been good at making one little thing sound like a catastrophe.”
“No,” Lucy said. “I’ve gotten good at knowing when something is wrong.”
Fiona set the cup on the porch rail. “Tell Chloe I stopped by.”
“I won’t wake her.”
Fiona turned away, still smiling as she crossed the porch. Lucy closed the door and stood with her hand on the knob until Fiona’s steps faded.
Dana exhaled. “She didn’t come to check on Chloe.”
“No.”
“She came to see what you know.”
Lucy reached into her pocket and felt the folded receipt through the fabric. “She knows I kept it.”
A notification chimed from the kitchen.
The family tablet sat beside the laptop, its screen lighting with a message preview. George had left it signed into the family messaging account; Lucy had used it for video calls during her assignment. The sender’s name appeared above the text.
Fiona.
Lucy was moving before she finished reading. The message was addressed to George.
She has the receipt. We need to move faster.
Fiona’s shadow crossed the glass in the front door. The handle turned; she pushed it open and stepped back inside, her eyes already fixed on the tablet.
“Give me that,” she said.
Lucy reached the counter first. She tapped the message, opening the full thread. Fiona lunged for the screen.
May you like
Lucy pulled it against her chest.
For the first time since she had arrived, Fiona’s smile was gone.
