My Future Doesn't Have Room for You novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Car Fob

Kayla stood on the porch boards with her bare feet on the cold wood.

She held the car key out in front of her, and her hand was shaking.

"Is it true?" she said again. "Say it to me, not to the room."

"Yes," I said.

"All of it?"

"Thirty-one thousand dollars. It came out of the trust account. Your mother signed for it."

Kayla looked at the key.

It had a leather tag with her initials burned into it.

She had posted a photo of that tag the week of Christmas.

"She said Dad got a bonus," Kayla said.

"Gary doesn't get bonuses," Esther said, very gently. "I was a teller for forty years. I know what a factory supervisor takes home."

Kayla's mouth went crooked.

"No," she said. "No, I knew."

I waited.

"I didn't know the number," she said. "I knew it wasn't a bonus. I was fourteen, and I came down for water, and Mom was on the phone in the kitchen. She said, 'The girl never checks the card. She wouldn't know what to ask.'"

Her voice cracked on the last word.

"And I went back upstairs. I didn't ask her what she meant."

"Why not?"

"Because I liked my room." She wiped her face with the back of her wrist. "I liked my room, and I liked the trips, and I liked that you never said anything. It made everything easy."

Esther shifted her purse to the other arm.

Down on the street, a car slowed and sped up again.

I had imagined a hundred times what Kayla might say to me if the day came.

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