Chapter 12: The Checkbook

"Rent," Nate said.

"Rent," Barbara said. "Room and board. Ten o'clock tomorrow, at your house. I'll bring the figures."

She went on down the stairs to the coat check without waiting for an answer.

At ten the next morning her car came up the drive in Sewickley.

Leah watched it from the upstairs window with her arms folded.

"Do you want me down there?"

"She asked for alone," Nate said. "Let her have alone. Stay close to the door."

"I'll be closer than the door."

Frank was in the morning room off the hall, with the sports section and his tea.

Nate let Barbara in himself.

She stood in the front hall and looked up at the staircase and the chandelier and the portrait at the top of the landing.

She took her time about it.

"So this is where you grew up," she said. "And you let me think you came from a trailer."

"I never said a word about where I came from."

"No. You didn't, did you."

He took her into the parlor.

She sat on the edge of the yellow sofa and took a typed page out of her purse and laid it on the coffee table.

"I'll be quick," she said. "I know you're busy now."

The page had three numbers on it.

"Room and board for three years," Barbara said. "Eighteen hundred a month, which is what the attic would rent for."

"Then food, utilities and the insurance on that truck."

"I've rounded it down. A hundred thousand."

Nate looked at the page without picking it up.

For the same three years, Leah had paid her mother fifteen hundred dollars a month in rent for that attic.