Chapter 4 - What Nick Had Been Hiding
Nick lunged for the phone.
Not violently.
Desperately.
I pulled it back before he reached it.
“Are you insane?” he snapped. “You’re doing this in front of my kids?”
I glanced toward the den where his children were still laughing over new toys bought with money my parents claimed they did not have.
“You shut my son out in front of your door.”
“That wasn’t me.”
“You enjoyed it.”
His face changed because that was true.
Nick had always enjoyed being the child everyone protected. When he failed classes, my parents blamed teachers. When he lost jobs, they blamed managers. When he gambled, drank, borrowed, lied, and vanished for days, they called it stress. When I succeeded, they called it luck. When I helped, they called it duty.
My mother lowered her voice. “Claire, you don’t understand everything.”
That tone made me colder.
“What don’t I understand?”
My father said, “Leave it.”
I turned to him. “No.”
My father’s jaw tightened. He had never liked that word from me.
Nick’s wife, Jenna, stepped forward from the hallway. She looked tired in a way I recognized instantly. Not tired from one holiday. Tired from years of covering for a man everyone else kept rescuing.
“Tell her,” Jenna said.
Nick spun toward her. “Don’t.”
She ignored him.
“The rent isn’t the only thing,” she said. “The car payments you covered? He told you they were late because of medical bills for the kids.”
I looked at Nick.
Jenna’s eyes filled.
“There were no medical bills. He used the money for a private poker room downtown.”
My mother snapped, “Jenna.”
“No,” Jenna said, voice shaking. “I’m tired of everyone acting like Claire is cruel because she’s the only one still paying.”
Tyler stood close to my side now, one hand wrapped around my coat.
My father sank into a chair.
I realized then that he had known.
Maybe not all of it.
Enough.
“Did you know?” I asked him.
Richard did not answer.
My mother did.
“Nick has weaknesses. Family helps.”
“And Tyler?”
She looked confused, as if the question did not belong in the same room.
“What about him?”
“He is family.”
Her face tightened.
No performance this time.
No polished Christmas smile.
Just the truth underneath.
“He is your child,” she said.
That sentence did what the door had not.
It finished something.
May you like
I picked up Tyler’s gift bag.
“You’re right,” I said. “He is mine. Which means he leaves with me.”
