Chapter 17: What He Gave Up

Dalton's POV

On Monday morning I sat down across a conference table from the only person who had ever stayed.

Opal sat at the head of the table with her orange lipstick and her reading glasses.

Our family lawyer sat on her right.

The accountant sat on her left, holding a folder in both hands.

Lucinda sat opposite me in a navy suit with her hair pinned perfectly.

She wore no jewelry at all.

Susie had held my face at the hotel door at six that morning, with her coat buttoned to her chin.

"Look at her," she had said. "Don't go quiet."

So I looked.

The lawyer slid a stack of paper across the table.

"These are the figures," he said.

"Two million, one hundred and four thousand dollars, over six years, taken from Mr. Cudahy's cards."

"Taken," Lucinda said gently. "That's a strong word for a woman who ran his life."

"It's the word I would use," Opal said, "for a woman who put her mother in a loft on my grandson's money."

Lucinda turned her head and looked at me.

Her eyes were wet, and I knew every one of her faces, and I couldn't tell which one this was.

"Dal," she said. "Tell them it isn't what it looks like."

"It's what it looks like."

"I took care of you."

"You took."

"I picked up your phone when your father died," she said.

Her voice cracked.

"I called the funeral home. I made the list of who to call. You couldn't stand up."

She pressed her fingers to her mouth.

"I carried that coffin with five men who didn't know you, and not one person in that church asked me what it cost."

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