PART 3
He looked back at me.
“Not here.”
I almost laughed.
“You brought fourteen boxes into my house without permission, but now you’re concerned about privacy?”
“Mom, please.”
“No.”
I stepped back inside and closed the front door.
“You’re going to tell me now.”
Caleb swallowed.
Sophie appeared at the top of the staircase.
“Mommy?”
Vanessa immediately turned.
“Go back upstairs, sweetheart.”
“But I’m hungry.”
“I’ll make you something.”
Sophie looked at me.
“Grandma, are you leaving?”
The question hit me harder than anything Caleb had said.
I smiled at her.
“I’m going on my trip, sweetheart.”
“To Italy?”
“Yes.”
“Can you bring me something?”
“Of course.”
She smiled.
Then she disappeared upstairs.
I waited until I heard her bedroom door close.
“Now,” I said.
Caleb rubbed his forehead.
“We’re not just behind on rent.”
“I know.”
“No, Mom. You don’t.”
Vanessa whispered, “Caleb, stop.”
He ignored her.
“The townhouse wasn’t the only thing.”
I felt something cold settle in my stomach.
“What else?”
He sat down on the bottom stair.
For the first time since arriving, he looked like my son again.
Not the confident thirty-five-year-old who had a wife, two children, an expensive SUV and an answer for everything.
Just Caleb.
The little boy who used to sleep with a baseball glove under his pillow.
The teenager who called me at two in the morning because his car wouldn’t start.
The young man who promised me, after Patrick died, that he would always take care of me.
“I lost my job three months ago,” he said.
I stared at him.
“What?”
“I got fired.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew you’d fix it.”
I didn’t answer.
He looked down at his hands.
“I was making good money before. I thought I’d find something quickly.”
“How much were you making?”
“About a hundred and thirty.”
Vanessa interrupted.
“Before taxes.”
I looked at her.
She continued quietly.
“And bonuses.”
I looked back at Caleb.
“So you lost your job three months ago.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
“No.”
“Yet you continued spending.”
His eyes closed.
“Yes.”
I nodded slowly.
“On what?”
He didn’t answer.
Vanessa did.
“Things were already committed.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She looked away.
I waited.
Finally, Caleb said, “We had debts.”
“How much?”
Silence.
“How much?”
He whispered, “About eighty-seven thousand.”
I thought of my own $81,440.
Then I realized something.
“How much did you owe before I started helping you?”
Caleb didn’t respond.
I looked at Vanessa.
She stared at the floor.
“How much?”
“Thirty-two thousand,” she said.
My stomach dropped.
“So the debt doubled.”
“Some of it was interest.”
“Some?”
“Credit cards. Personal loans. The SUV.”
I looked through the window toward the driveway.
The black SUV was practically new.
“When did you buy that?”
“Last year.”
“How much?”
“Sixty-four.”
I stared at him.
“Sixty-four thousand dollars?”
“It’s financed.”
“Of course it is.”
Caleb stood.
“We thought I would be promoted.”
“You thought you’d be promoted, so you bought a sixty-four-thousand-dollar SUV.”
“It was a family vehicle.”
“It was a luxury vehicle.”
He didn’t argue.
I looked at Vanessa.
“And you were okay with this?”
She folded her arms.
“We had a lifestyle.”
I almost smiled.
“That’s what this is?”
She frowned.
“What?”
“A lifestyle.”
I looked around my house.
At the marble entryway.
The antique console Patrick and I had bought in Savannah.
The framed photographs.
The staircase where Caleb had taken his first steps.
“This isn’t a lifestyle, Vanessa.”
I pointed toward the SUV.
“That’s a payment.”
I pointed toward the phone.
“That’s a bill.”
I pointed toward the envelope.
“That’s a debt.”
Then I pointed toward the children upstairs.
“Those are your responsibilities.”
Vanessa’s eyes flashed.
“You think we don’t know that?”
“I think you’ve forgotten.”
Caleb stepped between us.
“Mom, there’s more.”
I stared at him.
“Of course there is.”
He looked at the envelope.
“The townhouse wasn’t actually the beginning.”
“What was?”
He hesitated.
Then he said something that made my entire body go still.
“The house.”
“What house?”
“Our house.”
I stared at him.
“What about it?”
“The mortgage.”
I felt the room tilt slightly.
“Your mortgage is in your name.”
“Mostly.”
My eyes narrowed.
“Mostly?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
“I’ll show you.”
He opened an email.
Then another.
Then a document.
He turned the screen toward me.
I read it.
Then read it again.
I didn’t understand.
Or perhaps I understood perfectly and simply didn’t want to.
“Mom,” he said quietly, “when we bought the townhouse, the bank wouldn’t approve us.”
“I remember you telling me you needed a guarantor.”
“You signed.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t tell you everything.”
My fingers tightened around the handle of my suitcase.
