Chapter 6 - MATTHEW’S MOTHER BLAMED CLAIRE FIRST
Matthew’s mother, Diane Mercer, called on Saturday.
Claire almost ignored it.
Then answered because Diane had been part of her life for twelve years.
“You’ve destroyed him.”
No hello.
Claire sat at Rachel’s kitchen table.
“How?”
“Police. Lawyers. Bank problems.”
“Matthew locked me in a garage with a running car.”
Diane began crying.
“He told me you started the car.”
“Rachel saw him outside with the remote.”
“He was trying to save you.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Did he tell you he kicked me too?”
Silence.
That was the first crack.
Diane lowered her voice.
“He said things got physical after you attacked him.”
Claire almost laughed.
Then stopped herself.
“Diane, I am not doing this with you.”
“You’ve always thought you were smarter than him.”
There it was.
The family wound.
Matthew had grown up with Frank as the craftsman everyone admired.
Matthew was the charismatic son who sold jobs but never measured twice.
Claire became the organized wife who caught mistakes.
At family dinners, Frank sometimes joked:
“If Matthew ever gets lost, Claire will spreadsheet him home.”
Everyone laughed.
Matthew did too.
Claire had never realized how much he hated it.
Diane continued:
“You came into his company and took over everything.”
“I built the accounting system.”
“He built the business.”
“We both did.”
“Frank built it.”
Claire stopped.
Frank had never actually owned Mercer Homeworks.
He helped start it.
Emotionally, the Mercers treated the company as family inheritance.
Legally, Claire had invested $80,000 of her own savings and worked without full salary for two years.
Her forty-nine percent was not symbolic.
“Did you know about MRC?” Claire asked.
Diane stopped crying.
That answered enough.
“How much?”
“Matthew said he was finally building something his father would be proud of.”
Claire felt anger rise.
“Did you know he used Mercer Homeworks money?”
“He said it was his company.”
“No.”
Claire’s voice sharpened.
“It is ours.”
Diane replied:
“That is exactly the problem.”
The sentence stayed with Claire after the call.
Not the garage.
Not the land.
May you like
Not even the money.
Her existence as a co-owner had become, in Matthew’s family mythology, an insult.
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