Chapter 24 #2
“It would be a conflict of interest.” I straightened, feeling the drying sweat along the waistband of my shorts, only for it to be melted by a new rush of heat. I didn’t want to say it. But I didn’t know legal ramifications like my father did.
He’d never exploited her. He’d never gossiped about her. He’d disrespected her and their marriage, he’d left me behind, but he’d never once denied the alimony she’d requested. His only downfall was abandonment.
He was my father. Not a good father, but my father. A father that knew law.
“Is something wrong?” I heard him sit up. The plastic click of a pen being set atop a table. Then the snick of a laptop being shut.
“You know Aunt Cadence died.” I inhaled through my nose.
He swallowed. Deadpan, he said, “Yes.”
I ignored that needle of pain, the affirmation that he’d never once called to offer condolences. Focus. “Have you spoken to Mom since she died?”
“I haven’t spoken to anyone, Landry.”
“She left everything to me. The house. The trusts. Life insurance money. All of it.” I blinked away a sudden burn of tears.
Silence.
Sayer paused on the front step. Concern laced every inch of his face.
I leaned against the tree and let my head fall back against its trunk. “Mom is pissed. She showed up a few days ago and says I’m keeping things from her. I’d planned on selling the house but—”
I don’t know what’s best.
I don’t know what I should do.
Help me.
“I don’t know where to go from here,” I said, flat.
I walked away from the tree, closer to the edge of the property.
It butted up against a fence of bramble and ivy, tangled over an old wire fence that looked nearly completely camouflaged by the foliage.
Somewhere, miles up the street, another house stood.
I wondered if they could hear my voice travel on the wind.
“I see.” More rustling, like a harsh palm running over beard stubble. “So she came to you because she was upset you were selling things?”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose. He needed to know, whether or not anything would come of it. “And she heard that you and Penny split up.”
A long, heavy breath. “God.”
“She wanted me to get in touch with you.”
He cursed, low. “Did she now.” It wasn’t even a question.
“She’s out of money. She’s looking for a place to stay. She said she could stay with me while I get in contact with you.” And the Airbnb I set her up with, which was due to end soon.
He gave a brittle, viperous laugh. “Did she.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. It was like he heard it, because he went on, “Tell her she has no room at my house. She can figure it out on her own.”
A spark of anger. “So what am I supposed to do about her? She’s been circling and I know she wants to go through Cadence’s things and—”
“Why not let her?”
“Because they aren’t her things, Dad. They’re mine. Aunt Cadence left them for me.” I hated how much of a child I sounded in the moment. “What do I do?”
“Landry. Listen. Your mother is going to get something whether you like it or not.”
“She’s a grown woman. She didn’t even show up to her funeral,” I bit, blood starting to bubble.
“Why should she get anything when she only cares about filling her pockets so she can spend it at the ABC store and get wasted in the middle of the road downtown? Why should I enable her any more than I already have?”
“Because she won’t—”
“Do you not see what I’m saying?” I cut in.
The line went silent. For a moment, I thought he hung up. Then I realized why it was quiet. From the corner of my eye, even Sayer stood by the dead rosebush, frozen, staring at me.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cut my dad off.
A whistling breath. “I see what you’re saying, Lan. I’m asking you to see what I’m saying.”
I ground my teeth. I wanted to be petty. I wanted to ask, “Why should I when you weren’t here when she left me for three days and bounced off to some casino in Virginia and left me to eat stale ramen and curdled milk?” but I didn’t.
I’d called him. I’d asked for this. I was an adult. Being combative would get me nowhere.
“What I’m saying,” he started again, “is that your mother doesn’t just need money. She needs a clinic, but she won’t take it. Giving her a roof is the only thing that can help right now unless—”
“She is not living with me.”
“Then admit her, Lan.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why, so you don’t have to?” Not just pay for it, but wipe himself of responsibility?
“I tried,” he snapped. “Twice. She did the time, she got out, and relapsed. Both times in the last four years.”
I stared at a particularly tall blade of grass. “You had her admitted to a clinic?”
“Yes. And she will only get help if she wants it. I’ve tried to help her, I have paid her more than enough alimony over the last however many years, I’ve paid her bills, I’ve paid every collection she accrued, everything.
The rent, the water, the insurance—every last dingy bit of that hellhole she picked, I paid for.
She’s had enough opportunity, and I refuse to give her another. ”
My cheeks started to tingle.
I’d always thought—Mom never said anything about her not paying the bills. Then again, I wasn’t surprised by that. Just surprised that Dad still paid for it all. That he’d known where I lived this whole time and never once stopped by.
Why would he pay to keep our lights on, knowing she had a problem, but then leave me behind at the end of the day? Return to Penny, continue his sideways love affairs, and turn his back on the person that needed him the most?
Why would he help her, but he never helped me?
Vomit ate at my lungs. I shook my head. Closed my eyes. The birds singing mitigated the anger only so much.
What more of an answer did I need?
“I’ll figure it out,” I whispered. “Thanks for your help, Vince.”
“Landry—”
I hung up. Almost immediately, his caller ID blinked on-screen, but I declined it. Below the declined call appeared a text message bubble—this one not from my father.
My heart leaped into my mouth; immediately, I wiped sweat from my eyes and beelined back to the house. She’d seen it.
“What did your dad want?” Sayer asked, cautious.
“More of the same. Just a bunch of excuses.” I picked up a hand trowel and an extra set of gloves. “I can clean this up.”
“Where are you going?” Sayer picked up the dead rosebush and tossed it into the bramble. It floated on the live bushes, but he left it, then balled up his gardening gloves and trailed after me.
“I need to meet someone in town really quick. I can pick up lunch, though.”
“Emma said she’d bring something back. She went to The Blue Corduroy to finish her work.” Sayer followed me into the living room. I grabbed a water and a protein shake out of the fridge, chugged one, then sipped the other.
He made careful work of not touching the couch. Instead, he peeled his shirt from his body. “Well. If you’re leaving, can I borrow your shower?”
“Sure.”
“As long as there’s no hot blond guy hiding in there somewhere.” Sayer tilted his head with a heavy squint.
“Hadrian is not hiding in the shower.”
“Mm. A ghost, then?”
“No.” If only he knew.
“Says the girl that told Emma about a book nook turning on and off by itself.”