Chapter 12 - WHAT WE WERE EACH TRYING TO PROTECT
The four of us met once.
Not at the house.
Not at Bennett House.
Our attorneys arranged a conference room in Center City Philadelphia because investigators wanted to clarify restitution issues before deciding how the case would proceed.
Susan arrived first.
Ryan sat as far from Caroline as the table allowed.
My daughter looked thinner than she had on Mother’s Day.
No one mentioned the flower.
Ryan spoke first.
“Why didn’t you tell me I lost my mother’s money?”
Caroline looked at him.
“Because you stopped sleeping after the project failed. You said you had destroyed everything your father left you.”
“So you stole from your mother’s company.”
“I borrowed.”
“Without permission.”
She looked down.
Susan interrupted.
“I told you to tell him.”
“And I told you I would handle it.”
“You sent me money I should not have taken.”
“Yet you took it.”
Susan absorbed that without arguing.
I asked Caroline why she lied about the house.
Her eyes lifted toward me.
“Because every morning Ryan woke up in that place, I could feel him remembering it belonged to you.”
Ryan leaned back.
“That was my problem to deal with.”
“You made jokes about being your mother-in-law’s tenant.”
“I made stupid jokes.”
“You made me feel like I brought nothing into the marriage.”
He opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
There was enough truth in her accusation to hurt him.
Susan admitted she liked being chosen over me.
“I spent years feeling as though Dorothy looked at my family and saw people who needed rescuing.”
I almost objected.
Then I remembered how I spoke about Ryan’s investment.
She continued.
“When Caroline started treating me like the mother who understood her, I enjoyed it more than I should have.”
Finally, Caroline looked at me.
“You never believed I could become you.”
“I didn’t want you to become me.”
“That is not what it felt like.”
I let the silence sit.
“I should have respected you enough to let you fail without treating failure like a character defect.”
Tears appeared in her eyes.
Then I added, “And you still stole from people who trusted you.”
She nodded.
For the first time since Mother’s Day, she did not argue.
Everyone at that table had been protecting something.
Ryan protected pride.
Susan protected status.
I protected control.
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Caroline protected the image of a life she believed love required her to maintain.
The company had paid the bill for all of it.
