Chapter 9 - THE PRICE TAG
The handbag had cost $2,480.
Harrison marked the charge on my statement.
He had rounded up when he demanded repayment.
I stared at the extra twenty dollars.
Somehow that small amount made the whole thing uglier.
“You stood at this table and asked me to buy it twice.”
“I was trying to stop the fighting.”
“With my money.”
“I thought I could fix it before you noticed.”
“What were you going to fix first? The account or me?”
He covered his face.
I wanted to reach across the table.
That instinct frightened me.
My hand knew how to comfort him before the rest of me could decide whether comfort belonged in the room.
I folded my hands instead.
“Why didn’t you stop?”
“The first time was a dinner. Sloan thought I was paying. I didn’t tell her which card.”
“And after that?”
“She found out. She said you’d promised to help us.”
“Had I?”
“No.”
“Did you tell her no?”
He shook his head.
There it was.
Not a mastermind hidden behind my son.
A grown man accepting each easy excuse until the excuses cost almost eighteen thousand dollars.
He said they had planned to repay me with money they saved after I sold the house and moved somewhere smaller.
They imagined I would help with their next apartment from the sale proceeds.
Money I had never offered.
A sale I had never discussed.
“You planned to repay stolen money with another gift I hadn’t agreed to give.”
He winced.
“Please don’t say stolen.”
“What word would make you hear it?”
Upstairs, a door slammed.
Sloan appeared carrying her laptop.
“Don’t sign anything,” she told him.
I looked at the paper.
He had written the date, the total, and a sentence saying I had not approved the purchases.
He had not signed his name.
“This is between me and my mother,” he said.
Sloan’s expression changed.
“Really? Because you were happy to let me be the villain when you handed me her card.”
Silence settled between them.
For the first time, they were looking at each other instead of me.
May you like
Sloan turned the laptop around.
“Maybe your mother should read what you told me before we ever moved in.”
