Before I could move, Walter spoke.
“Claire stays.”
Daniel blinked.
“Dad, she’s not family.”
Walter looked at him for a long moment.
“She came.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
Walter finished quietly.
“You didn’t.”
No one raised their voice.
That somehow made the silence afterward more brutal.
Daniel stepped into the room and closed the door halfway.
“What did you give her?”
There it was.
Not How are you?
Not Are you feeling better?
Not Why didn’t you tell me you were lonely?
What did you give her?
Walter looked at me.
I said, “Enough.”
Daniel laughed, but the sound came too quickly.
“Claire, you have no idea what you’re involving yourself in.
My father gets confused.
He mixes up dates.
He invents things.”
Walter’s face fell.
I suddenly understood why the handwritten note in the bank box had mattered so much to him.
Maybe one day that will be true.
It is not true today.
Daniel had been preparing to turn his father’s illness into a weapon against his credibility.
I took a copy of the oldest transfer record from my bag and placed it on the dresser.
Daniel didn’t touch it.
He didn’t need to.
He recognized it immediately.
His eyes flicked to me.
“Where did you get that?”
“Walter kept records.”
For the first time since I had known him, Daniel had nothing ready to say.
Then anger replaced surprise.
“Those accounts were complicated.
Claire never understood our finances.”
Walter spoke from behind me.
“I understood them.”
Daniel turned.
“Dad—”
“I asked you if she approved those transfers.”
Daniel’s mouth tightened.
Walter continued.
“You lied to me.
You lied to her.
Then you told me she didn’t want my letters.”
Daniel looked at me again.
“You’re really going to do this? After everything you put me through?”
Years earlier, that sentence would have hooked me instantly.
I would have started explaining myself, defending myself, proving that I wasn’t cruel.
This time I didn’t.
