Chapter 12
The foundation back office was colder than the ballroom. I hadn't expected that. The chandeliers out there threw warm light over everything, but in here the fluorescents buzzed and the air smelled like old paper and cleaning spray.
Roman held the door for me and Sophie. Helena was already inside, standing beside a metal filing cabinet like she owned it. She'd changed out of the beaded gown into a plain blouse, but she still wore the pearls. The bruise on her left cheek looked darker under the white light.
"This is unnecessary," she said. Her voice was low. "Those ledgers are private donor records."
"They're my bank transfers," Roman said. He didn't raise his voice. He set his hand lightly on the back of Sophie's cardigan, not pulling her, just there.
The office was small. A desk, two chairs, a wall of banker boxes labeled by year. A storage room door stood open beside it, stacked with folded linens and extra centerpieces from the gala. I reached for Sophie's hand.
Helena unlocked the cabinet with a key from her purse. Her fingers shook a little. She pulled out a black ledger and set it on the desk. Then another. Then a third.
Roman opened the first one. I stood next to him. Sophie climbed into the desk chair and watched us, her legs not touching the floor.
The pages were neat. Helena's handwriting. Dates down the left, amounts down the right, little notes in the margin. I saw the $50,000 entries, one for every month for three years, all marked "R. Deposit - Received." Right next to them were the outs.
"October," I said quietly. I ran my finger across. "$12,000 - ballroom deposit. $8,000 - donor tables. $4,500 - gown and alterations."
Helena didn't look at the page. She looked at the wall.
Roman turned the page. "November. Same. December." He kept going. His jaw tightened. "January - $6,000 jewelry cleaning and reset. February - $15,000 catering guarantee."
I felt my chest go tight. I remembered the winter Sophie had needed new shoes and I'd patched her grey cardigan because I couldn't afford another. I remembered telling her we couldn't turn the heat up.
"Where's rent?" I asked. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to. "Where's groceries? Where's for Sophie?"
Helena finally spoke. "Fifteen hundred a month went to your account. That's noted."
Roman flipped to the summary page at the back. Helena had totaled it herself. $50,000 in, $48,500 out to foundation costs, image upkeep, table purchases that made it look like she was giving. $1,500 to us.
I did the math in my head before Roman said it. Then he said it anyway, flat and quiet.
"Thirty-six months," he said. "At fifty thousand. That's one point eight million dollars."
Sophie made a small sound. I didn't realize I'd squeezed her hand.
Helena's eyes filled. "You don't understand what it costs to keep this name respected. To keep donors believing in us. If we looked poor, no one would give. I was protecting the foundation."
"You were buying chandeliers with her grocery money," Roman said. He wasn't yelling. That made it worse.
Helena sat down hard in the other chair. She put her hands over her face for a second, then dropped them. The bruise caught the light again.
"I couldn't tell people he just left," she said, looking at me, then at Sophie. "A dead father — that people understand. A dead father gets casseroles and checks. An absent father who sends money but doesn't visit? People ask questions. They judge the mother. They judge me for raising her."
My stomach turned. I crouched down so I was eye level with Sophie, who was staring at Helena.
"You told her I was dead?" Roman asked. It wasn't loud. It was a question that already knew the answer.
Helena nodded once. Short. "Sophie was three when you stopped coming around. She kept asking where Daddy was. I told her you were gone. That you were dead. It was easier. She stopped asking. People gave more when I mentioned my late son-in-law at the luncheons."
Sophie slipped off the chair and came to stand against my side. She clung to my olive shirt the same way she had in the ballroom. I could feel her breathing fast.
"Grandma said you were in heaven," Sophie whispered to Roman. Not accusatory. Just confused. "She said that's why you didn't write."
Helena reached for her, then stopped herself. "I did it so you wouldn't feel abandoned. A dead father can't leave you on purpose."
I stood up slowly. I didn't know what to do with my hands. Roman closed the ledger. The sound of it shutting was loud in that small room.
"And the one point eight?" I said. "Was that so I wouldn't feel abandoned too?"
Helena didn't answer. She stared at the boxes in the storage room, at the extra floral arrangements already wilting. Roman put the ledgers together in a neat stack and slid them toward me.
May you like
"We're not doing anything tonight," he said to me, not to her. "No calls. No announcements. We take these and we figure it out with Sophie first."
I nodded. I kept my hand on Sophie's back. Helena sat in that buzzing light with her pearls and her bruise, and for the first time I saw her not as the woman who ran the ballroom, but as the woman who'd needed that ballroom to believe she was still worth something, even if it cost us everything.
