Chapter 7 - The Deal Between Rachel and Robert
Robert waited until Rachel’s car disappeared.
Then he sat down.
“I made a mistake.”
Daniel felt anger rise.
“How big?”
“Fifty thousand dollars big.”
“You already told me that.”
“That wasn’t the entire mistake.”
Linda looked at her husband.
Robert folded his hands.
Two years earlier Rachel had come to him alone.
Ellison House had lost a major commercial client after a developer went bankrupt. Rachel needed cash to cover payroll and vendor bills.
She begged Robert not to tell Daniel.
“She said you were already talking about trying for a baby,” Robert explained. “She said if you knew how bad the company looked, you’d ask her to close it.”
“I probably would have.”
“I know.”
“So you helped her hide it.”
Robert nodded.
Daniel stood and walked toward the window.
“You spent my entire marriage telling me honesty matters.”
“I know.”
“And then you financed a lie inside it.”
“I know.”
Linda stared at Robert as if he were suddenly unfamiliar.
“Did you tell me?”
“No.”
Her voice hardened.
“So both of you decided everyone else was too fragile for the truth.”
Robert had no defense.
He admitted he had transferred fifty thousand from a brokerage account.
Rachel repaid six thousand over several months.
Then payments stopped.
When he asked questions, she claimed business had improved and requested more time.
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” Daniel asked.
“Because by then I was ashamed.”
The answer was painfully believable.
Robert had not been protecting Rachel anymore.
He had been protecting himself from admitting he had helped deceive his son.
Daniel remembered Rachel’s contempt toward his parents becoming sharper around the same period.
He had thought money and class were the reason.
Now he wondered whether humiliation served another purpose.
If she could convince Daniel that his parents were intrusive, embarrassing, and beneath them, maybe Daniel would stop listening to them.
Maybe Robert would stay quiet.
Linda looked at the empty chair Rachel had left behind.
“She didn’t hate us because she thought we were poor.”
Robert looked at her.
May you like
Linda’s voice dropped.
“She hated us because we knew she wasn’t rich.”
