Chapter 5 - WHAT HER MOTHER HAD PROMISED
Diane answered on the fourth ring.
Claire put the call on speaker only so Natalie could hear.
“Thank God,” Diane said. “Where are you?”
“That’s not what I called about.”
“Claire—”
“Why is your name in Grant’s loan file?”
Nothing.
Claire glanced at Natalie.
“Mom.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You talked to his bank.”
Another pause.
Then Diane exhaled sharply.
“He asked me a few questions.”
“About my money?”
“About the family.”
“My investment account is not ‘the family.’”
Diane’s voice changed.
Less frightened.
More defensive.
“Grant has been carrying everybody for years, Claire.”
Claire almost laughed.
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“How much do you owe him?”
“I don’t owe him anything.”
“Then why has he sent you forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars?”
Diane stopped breathing loudly enough for Claire to notice the silence.
Finally she said, “Those were private arrangements.”
“What arrangements?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No. Try me.”
Diane began talking quickly.
Grant had helped after Paul died.
There had been taxes.
Repairs.
Insurance.
The mortgage.
Diane said she had performed occasional administrative work for Mercer Residential Partners in return.
“What work?”
“I made calls. I looked over things.”
“You were a dental-office receptionist for twenty-eight years.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You sound like your father when you do that.”
Claire pressed two fingers to her forehead.
Natalie remained still across the desk.
“What did you tell the bank about my account?”
Diane hesitated.
“I said you supported your husband.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I said you weren’t going to let his company fail over paperwork.”
Claire felt cold despite the August heat outside the office windows.
“Did Grant tell you I agreed to pledge the account?”
“He said you two were discussing it.”
“Did I tell you I agreed?”
“No, but—”
“So you knew.”
“Claire, he employs twenty-three people. There are subcontractors waiting to be paid. Families. He’s under pressure.”
“That still isn’t my answer.”
Diane’s voice softened.
It was the voice she had used when Claire was seventeen and furious over being grounded.
“Honey, marriage means sometimes you stop thinking like everything belongs to you.”
Claire looked at Natalie.
Natalie’s expression did not change.
Claire said, “Did you tell Grant I was staying with Lauren in October?”
Diane said nothing.
That was enough.
Claire ended the call.
For several seconds she stared at her own reflection in the dark computer monitor.
Her mother had not simply defended Grant after arguments.
She had been giving him information.
But one part still made no sense.
If Grant had been paying Diane for years, why had Diane sounded almost offended when Claire described the money as his?
And why had she called the payments “private arrangements” instead of help?
Natalie slid the printed financial statement back toward Claire.
“You’re asking the right question,” she said.
Claire looked at Diane’s name again.
May you like
Maybe the payments did not mean what Claire thought they meant.
That possibility was somehow worse.
