“Are you ending things?”
“I’m telling you that we need to start again. Slowly. Without your mother making decisions for us. And without you assuming the worst of me when she says something you don’t want to question.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“That’s fair.”
I gave him the envelope.
He stared at it.
“What are you doing?”
“Your mother gave me fifty thousand dollars. I accepted it because I wanted her to believe she had finally won. I wanted her to stop being careful with her words and show us what she was willing to do to keep Elaine away.”
He looked at me in disbelief.
“You planned this?”
“I suspected she would try something. I didn’t know how far she’d go. When I saw the recorder, I realized she intended to use the meeting against me. So I called you while she was still talking.”
