Chapter 4 - The House I Refused to Return To
Brian wanted me to come home.
I refused.
Megan took me to the condo Jason and she kept in Midtown while they renovated their house.
Jason arrived that night carrying groceries and looking as if he wanted to drive straight to his brother’s home.
I stopped him.
“No fighting.”
“Mom, she kicked you.”
“I know.”
“She dumped rotten food on you.”
“I was there.”
He paced once across the living room.
Megan touched his arm.
“Listen to her.”
So Jason sat.
For the first time in months, nobody told me what I needed.
They asked.
That difference nearly made me cry.
The following morning, Brian called.
He sounded exhausted.
“Brianna says you’ve been accusing her of stealing.”
I sat straighter.
“I asked about money.”
“What money?”
There it was.
He didn’t know.
Three weeks earlier, one of my quarterly investment statements had shown $186,000 transferred from a family holding account into something called PR Consulting Services.
Paul Renner’s initials.
I had asked Brianna about it because she handled some of Brian’s office paperwork from the villa.
She told me it was a legitimate tax transaction.
Two days later, that statement disappeared from my desk.
Then Brianna began telling Brian I was confused.
I had treated the two events as separate.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
“Brian,” I said, “who approved the payment to PR Consulting?”
Silence.
“What payment?”
Megan looked at me from across the room.
I put the phone on speaker.
“Hundred eighty-six thousand dollars.”
Brian’s voice changed.
“Mom, we never paid Paul anything close to that.”
The humiliation in the kitchen suddenly looked different.
May you like
Brianna hadn’t only wanted me gone.
She wanted me discredited.
