Chapter 3 - FOURTEEN THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS
“What money, Layla?”
My sister looked toward the front window.
Through the curtains, I could see our mother's silhouette.
Watching.
“Please don't make me explain everything out here,” Layla whispered.
“Then get in the car.”
She hesitated.
“Now.”
For perhaps the first time in her adult life, my sister did exactly what I told her.
I drove three blocks to a grocery store parking lot.
Then I opened the banking application on my phone.
Grant and I had created a separate joint checking account eighteen months earlier for wedding expenses.
I had contributed twenty-eight thousand dollars.
Grant had contributed eight thousand.
We had already paid eleven thousand two hundred dollars in legitimate deposits.
That meant our remaining balance should have been approximately twenty-four thousand eight hundred dollars.
Instead, the screen showed:
$10,400.
I checked the account number.
Then I checked it again.
“Where is the rest?”
Layla stared at her hands.
“Mom needed help.”
I turned toward her.
“Fourteen thousand four hundred dollars?”
“She thought she could pay it back.”
I scrolled through the transactions.
Three transfers appeared over the previous two months.
$5,800.
$4,100.
$4,500.
All three had gone to Willow & Stem Floral.
My mother's business.
The same flower shop where I had worked weekends throughout high school.
The shop my father had helped build before he died nine years earlier.
The shop I had already lent twelve thousand dollars to last summer when Mom claimed the refrigeration system needed replacing.
“Why did Grant transfer money to Mom?”
Layla wiped her face.
“She was behind on some bills.”
“Then why didn't she ask me?”
My sister said nothing.
I looked at the transaction dates.
The first transfer happened three days after Mom supposedly discovered the affair.
That wasn't coincidence.
“Did Grant know I hadn't approved these?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew?”
Layla nodded.
I looked out the windshield.
People were walking into the grocery store carrying reusable shopping bags.
A father lifted a toddler from a shopping cart.
An elderly woman struggled with her trunk.
Ordinary people having ordinary Thursdays.
Meanwhile, my family had apparently turned my wedding account into an emergency fund for a business I didn't control.
“Why are you telling me now?”
Layla swallowed.
“Because I thought you should know before Mom blames everything on me.”
I turned toward her.
“Everything?”
She reached for the door handle.
“I'm sorry.”
“Layla.”
“I can't do this.”
She opened the door.
I caught her wrist.
Not hard.
Just enough to make her look back.
“You don't get to destroy my life and then decide this conversation is too uncomfortable.”
Her eyes filled.
“You think I don't know what I've done?”
“I don't know what you know.”
For several seconds, she stared at me.
Then she said something I hadn't expected.
“Grant told me the money was temporary. He said Mom had already arranged another payment.”
“From where?”
Layla shook her head.
“He wouldn't tell me.”
I let go.
She stepped out of the car.
Before closing the door, she looked back.
“Tessa, I didn't take your wedding money.”
Then she walked away.
I sat there for fifteen minutes.
Eventually, I called the bank.
The representative confirmed that the transfers had been initiated through Grant's authorized access to our joint account.
Nothing had been taken by an outsider.
Someone with legal access had moved the funds.
I documented every transaction.
Then I transferred five thousand dollars of the remaining balance into my personal checking account, leaving the rest untouched until Grant and I could settle the account properly.
I wasn't going to make a financial mistake because they had made a moral one.
At four that afternoon, I drove to Willow & Stem.
The shop smelled of eucalyptus, damp greenery, and fresh carnations.
For a moment, I was sixteen again.
My father was alive.
My mother was laughing behind the counter.
And Layla was begging me to finish her homework so she could meet friends.
Then I saw Mom standing beside the register.
She removed her reading glasses.
“What are you doing here?”
“I want to know where my fourteen thousand four hundred dollars went.”
Her face tightened.
“Not here.”
“Then close the office door.”
We stepped into the back room.
The refrigeration unit hummed steadily behind us.
Mom folded her arms.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“When the business was stable.”
“You already borrowed twelve thousand from me.”
“I know.”
“And now you've taken fourteen thousand four hundred more without asking.”
“Grant offered.”
“Grant offered money from an account I funded.”
She looked genuinely uncomfortable.
“I thought he would handle that with you.”
“That's an interesting phrase. Handle that.”
“Tessa, the business has been struggling.”
“Then show me the bills.”
She shook her head.
“You aren't involved in daily operations.”
“Apparently I'm involved in financing them.”
Her face hardened.
“Your father built this place.”
“Then stop using Dad to avoid answering me.”
She flinched.
Good.
I had never spoken to her that way before.
I pointed toward the humming cooler.
“Is that the refrigeration system I paid twelve thousand dollars to repair?”
Mom glanced over her shoulder.
Then back at me.
For one brief moment, I saw fear.
Not anger.
Fear.
“Mom?”
She pressed her lips together.
Finally, she whispered, “The cooler wasn't the problem.”
I stared at her.
“What was?”
May you like
She looked toward the office door.
Then she said, “Your sister opened a business, Tessa. And we made a terrible mistake trying to help her.”
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