Chapter 6 - WALTER FINALLY CHOSE A SIDE—HALFWAY
I was discharged to my brother Ethan’s house nine days after the fall.
The first shower with a plastic cast cover took forty minutes.
Getting from bed to bathroom required a transfer chair and help.
I hated needing people.
That was the cruelest part of Derek’s hospital taunt.
You still need me.
He understood exactly what dependency meant to me.
Fortunately, he was wrong about whom I needed.
Ethan and his wife, Molly, reorganized their house.
Coworkers delivered meals.
A physical therapist came twice a week.
Caroline handled legal communication.
Derek was allowed to contact me about necessary marital and company issues in writing.
I stopped taking his calls.
The silence cost us whatever remained of our marriage.
It also gave me room to think.
Walter called from a number I did not recognize.
“Elaine monitors the regular account.”
“You're sixty-six, Walter.”
“I know.”
“You sound sixteen.”
He did not argue.
“Did they find the ledger?”
“No.”
A long pause.
“Then she moved it.”
“Who?”
“You know.”
“Elaine?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before the search.”
“How would she know about the warrant?”
“I don't think she knew about the warrant.”
“Then why move it?”
“Because you got hurt.”
That made sense.
My injury told Elaine scrutiny was coming.
Walter continued.
“I gave Derek a blue notebook when he became president. Told him every family advance goes there until accounting categorizes it.”
“Did he use it?”
“For a while.”
“What happened?”
“He started telling me the old system was outdated.”
“Then why keep yours?”
“Because I didn't trust him.”
The words were quiet.
Painful.
“Yet you put him in charge.”
“He’s my son.”
Family again.
Always family.
The word had become a solvent capable of dissolving any standard.
I asked Walter why he had not stopped Derek.
His answer angered me.
“I thought I could fix it privately.”
I almost hung up.
“Do you understand that sentence is the reason I'm sitting in a wheelchair?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop fixing things privately.”
The next morning, Walter went to investigators with an attorney.
He admitted knowing about irregular family advances.
He admitted signing two board consents without reading them carefully.
He admitted Elaine often directed transfers.
He did not receive immunity.
He was not treated as a hero.
He simply started talking.
That shift had consequences.
Elaine filed for legal separation from him.
She removed him from their joint personal accounts where legally possible.
She told extended family he had become confused.
Two cousins called Derek asking whether Walter had dementia.
I had heard that tactic before.
Make the inconvenient person unreliable.
Walter moved into a furnished apartment near Conshohocken.
He had lived in the Villanova house for twenty-eight years.
Elaine changed the locks.
For the first time, I understood that her control over me had not started with me.
Walter had simply surrendered much earlier.
Then Priya called.
The missing $118,000 had been located.
It had gone into an investment account.
The account holder’s name was not Derek Mercer.
Not Elaine.
Not Walter.
It was mine.
Abigail Rose Mercer.
May you like
Opened seven months earlier.
I had never seen it before.
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