Chapter 10: The Price of Speaking
Harrison didn’t answer the lender right away. He looked at Mom, not me.
“Do you want to tell them you did not submit that request?”
Mom’s fingers tightened around her water glass. “Yes.”
Her voice was quiet. It wasn’t uncertain.
Harrison asked the lender to note her answer and preserve the request with the rest of the file. Priya sent over the records she’d organized—the deed, Mom’s recorded account, and the timing information from the recording. Harrison added his written objection. None of it made the lender’s review disappear. None of it promised what the lender would decide.
When he finished, Mom let out a breath through her nose.
“So now we wait?” she asked.
“For their next response,” Harrison said.
The words seemed to settle over the kitchen like dust. I wanted something sharper. A door slammed. A confession. A number on a page that proved everything.
Instead, I had Mom sitting at a table where her own words had finally been heard, and a family that could still make her doubt them.
A floorboard creaked in the hall.
Julian leaned against the doorway, his hands in the pockets of his robe. His gaze rested on Mom.
“You’re lying now to save Natalie.”
Mom’s shoulders lifted, then held.
Julian gave a short, joyless laugh. “You think she’ll stay once this is over? You think she wants to spend her life cleaning up your mess?”
I felt my body move before I decided to. Harrison’s hand rose slightly—not to stop me, exactly. Just a reminder that Julian was waiting for me to give him the scene he wanted.
Mom turned to him.
“I told the truth.”
“Your truth changes depending on who’s in the room.”
His voice softened, which somehow made it worse. “I could call the family tonight. Tell them everything you’ve said to Khloe. What you’re afraid of. What you forget. Let them decide whether you’re really the victim here.”
Mom’s face went still.
I knew the trick. Make the threat sound like a favor. Make her private fears feel like evidence against her.
“You don’t get to use what she trusted you with,” I said.
Julian smiled faintly. “You’ve been gone six years, Natalie. Don’t pretend you know what she trusted anyone with.”
Mom’s hand trembled once against the table. Then she put it flat on the wood.
“Go away, Julian.”
For a beat, he looked almost surprised. Then he pushed off the doorway and disappeared down the hall.
Harrison stayed until Mom said she wanted a few minutes without anyone talking about the lender. I wanted to ask if she was all right. I wanted to tell her none of what Julian said mattered. But she’d been asked enough questions, and I could see how each one made her brace for another answer she might have to defend.
So I sat beside her and let the quiet be hers.
A little later, Lena came in from the front room.
“Khloe’s here.”
My shoulders tightened.
Khloe appeared in the hallway, carrying her purse and wearing the expression she used when she wanted a favor to seem like a small misunderstanding.
“I need to get a folder,” she said. “It’s mine.”
“Which folder?” I asked.
She glanced toward the hall instead of answering. “The one I left in the desk.”
“You could’ve asked before coming in.”
“I shouldn’t have to ask permission to get my own things.”
Mom rose, slow and careful, one hand resting on the chair. “You can take what’s yours. Don’t touch anything else.”
Khloe’s eyes flicked toward her. For a moment, something like shame crossed her face. Then she turned away and headed for the small desk near the sitting room.
Lena followed at a distance, keeping her hands to herself. I stayed with Mom, but I could hear the desk drawer scrape, then another.
Khloe muttered something under her breath.
A moment later, Lena came back to the doorway. She didn’t speak, but her eyes moved to me.
When Khloe emerged, she had a manila folder tucked under her arm. Behind her, the desk’s bottom drawer sat crooked, pulled partway free.
“Khloe,” I said.
She stopped.
“What was in that folder?”
“Nothing you need.”
“You came back looking for it.”
“I said it’s mine.”
“You took it from a drawer in a house you don’t own.”
Her jaw tightened. “You really have a way of making everything sound criminal.”
“I’m asking a question.”
“And I’m telling you Julian has the originals.”
The words came fast, as if she’d been waiting for me to ask. She looked at me, then at Mom, and for an instant seemed to regret saying even that much.
“What originals?” I asked.
Khloe shifted the folder against her side. “I don’t know. Ask him.”
Then she walked out.
Lena looked toward the crooked drawer.
“I saw her pull it all the way out,” she said quietly. “She checked behind it before she left.”
I didn’t know what Khloe had been looking for, or why she’d taken the folder. I only knew Julian had the originals—or Khloe wanted us to believe he did—and that whatever she’d removed was now beyond our reach.
Mom’s phone buzzed on the table.
She looked down at the screen. Her face changed before she touched it.
“Is it him?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Do you want me to read it?”
“No.” She picked up the phone herself.
Her eyes moved across the message once. Then again.
“What does he say?” I asked.
Mom lowered the phone, but didn’t let go of it.
“He’ll leave,” she said. “If I sign a statement saying you abandoned me.”
A wave of anger rose so quickly I nearly spoke over her. I swallowed it. Mom stared at the screen, her mouth pressed tight, and I could see the temptation in her—the old bargain of saying whatever might quiet the room, even if it cost her the truth.
Then she looked up at me.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said. Her voice shook, but her eyes didn’t. “Don’t plead with me to refuse him. Let me decide.”
May you like
I held still.
Mom’s phone buzzed again in her hand. She read the message once more, while Julian’s condition waited on the screen between us.
