“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“You understand what she means, don’t you?”
I did.
“She means she would have treated you better if she knew you had money.”
“I know.”
Dad folded the paper.
“That isn’t kindness, Simone.”
He looked at Beverly’s message again.
“That’s accounting.”
Roland came four days later.
He stopped at the gate.
I almost refused to see him.
Then I remembered my father standing five hours too late in that hospice doorway.
I thought about sixteen lost years.
“Let him in.”
Roland walked into the house looking stunned.
He stared at the staircase.
The marble.
My mother’s portrait.
“You grew up here?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
I looked at him.
“Because I wanted to know who you would be if you thought I had nothing.”
He flinched.
“And now I know.”
We sat in the library.
Roland apologized.
For dinner.
For the car.
For everything.
Then he started blaming Beverly.
“It was Mom’s idea…”
I stopped him.
“Your mother texted me before you even left the driveway.”
I showed him the message.
He went pale.
“I didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
He looked confused.
“Then why doesn’t that matter?”
