Love Is Blind, I'm Not novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: A Gift Between Families

Diane calls the money a gift between families and Spencer tells Margot to be gracious. Elliot says he will write it as a loan against his controlling shares.

Bernie made Elliot sit at her kitchen table and eat three eggs.

He ate them without arguing.

Clancy sat on his boot the whole time.

I stood against the counter with my arms crossed and my face hot.

"What did I say in them?" I asked.

"A lot," Elliot said.

"Be specific."

He set his fork down.

"You said he'd asked for water and said thank you, and that you had cried in the pharmacy supply closet after." His voice stayed even. "You said you'd stopped sleeping in a bed because the chair was closer."

Bernie looked at me over her glasses.

I wanted to climb into the dryer.

"I didn't know anyone was listening," I said.

"I know. That's why they were so honest."

"Did you know he was proposing last night?"

"I found out on the plane." Elliot looked at his hands. "My mother texted me a photo from the roof. I came straight here from the airport."

"And you want what?"

"I want to go with you to my mother's house," he said. "You came for your money, didn't you? I'd rather you didn't walk in there alone."

Bernie pushed a plate of toast at me.

"Take the man," she said. "He's tall."

The Eisenhart house is a white colonial on a hill in Upper Arlington, with a lumber yard sign in the front lawn that Spencer's father had put up forty years ago.

Diane was in the kitchen when we walked in, dressing an enormous bowl of fruit for no reason I could see.

She did not look surprised.

"Elliot," she said. "You're home. And you've brought the, ah, Margot."

"I came about my money," I said.

"Your money." Diane wiped her hands on a dish towel. "Sit down. Do you want coffee?"

"I want thirty-eight thousand four hundred dollars."

"Oh, sweetheart."

She said it kindly, and she did not move to get her checkbook.

"You knew what you were doing when you took on his care," Diane said. "We were all family, weren't we? You said so yourself, in this kitchen. You said you'd do anything for him."

"You said you'd pay me back."

"I said after things settle. And things haven't settled. The yard is under a great deal of strain right now." She folded the towel in half. "Whatever's between families is a gift, Margot. You know that."

"A gift."

"Of love."

Footsteps came down the back stairs.

Spencer walked in wearing a gray quarter-zip and a smile.

He kissed his mother's cheek, nodded at his brother, and looked at me.

"Margot. Good, you came." He sounded relieved. "Listen, I don't want a scene. Mom's had a long week."

"I'm not making a scene. I'm asking for what she promised."

"You're asking Mom to do it in her kitchen, on the morning after my engagement." He said it patiently. "That's a lot. Be gracious. It isn't like you."

He reached across the counter and took my hand.

Then he held it a moment longer than he needed to.

"You're still cold," he said.

My chest went tight, and I pulled my hand away.

Behind me, Elliot's chair scraped back.

"Diane," he said.

"Yes, darling?"

"Did you promise Margot the money?"

"I told her after things settled."

"In those words? Or did you say the family would pay her back?"

Diane's mouth thinned.

"I might have used the word family."

"Elliot, don't start," Spencer said. "You've been gone three years. You don't know the first thing about what's happened."

"I know what she told me," Elliot said.

Spencer's smile went still.

"What she told you."

"Every Sunday."

Nobody in the kitchen said anything.

I looked at Spencer and watched him work out what that meant.

It took him a moment longer than it should have.

Then he laughed again, easily, and shook his head.

"Well, that's sweet. She always was a talker with the voicemail."

"I'm not asking either of you to pay out of kindness," Elliot said. "Mother, Margot nursed your son. She paid for his dressings and his night aide. That's a debt."

"It's a family matter," Diane said, "and I won't be spoken to this way in my own home."

"It's my home too. I own the controlling shares in the lumber yard." Elliot pulled out his phone. "So here is what we'll do."

"What are you doing?" she said.

"I'm calling my lawyer," he said. "I'll write Margot's money as a loan against my shares, payable from the yard's books, with interest."

Diane went white.

Spencer's hand dropped slowly to his side.

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