Chapter 6: Her Father's Money

"Then who do they think it came from?" I asked.

Jason threw the last two bags into the trunk.

He didn't answer.

He got in, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb.

Max's face was a pale shape in the back window.

The neighbor across the street was still holding her hose.

I sat down on the porch swing next to the lemon cake and stayed there until it got dark.

March of last year, the bank had cut his father's credit line.

Jason came home grey in the face. Payroll was due in nine days.

Three showrooms. Forty-one employees.

I had my grandmother's money in a savings account. Two hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

She left it to me the fall before.

I gave Jason two hundred thousand of it.

He signed a one-page note at my kitchen table. Repayable on demand.

He cried when he signed it.

He said he would tell his father the minute things were stable.

He said they'd finally see who I was.

I went inside and found the note in my desk drawer.

His signature was still there, blue ink, a little shaky.

On Monday morning at ten, my doorbell rang.

It was Andrea.

She was in a camel coat and white sneakers, holding two empty duffel bags.

"Jason asked me to grab Max's school clothes," she said. "And his inhaler. He's at Pamela's."

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