CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I descended the stairs, taking each step deliberately. I knelt before the fireplace.

At first it looked as pristine as ever, the deluxe latex paint unmarred.

But I studied it. Someone had lit a fire here, not recently—no ash smudged my finger as I ran it along the cold iron of the grill. The ghosts of flames flickered up along the painted brick interior. Someone had cleaned out the fireplace with care, and scrubbed the cracks between the bricks.

Mom was in the kitchen, greeting one of the cats, “How are you this morning, Bucket?”

I selected a banana from the wooden bowl and peeled it. I found a plate and sliced it carefully. Some people ask why don’t I eat oranges, or peaches, or mangoes.

We have North America’s loudest refrigerator, a gigantic white Whirlpool that’s always pumping Freon, whatever fridges do, making a noise that makes you want to yank the plug out of the wall.

I said, “Dad’s protecting you.”

Mom looked at me like she was surprised I was in the house.

“That’s why he agreed not to fight the case,” I said. “To keep you out of trouble.”

Mom made one of her plosive little laughs, almost never an expression of humor.

I told her about the empty steel boxes, the signs of a fire. And I could see her considering telling me I had no business in her room, in her files. I could see her thinking, I don’t have to talk. Mom could tell me that she burned up some old folders because she was sick of having them around.

I had already gone beyond what I intended to say, and I was sure she would leave the room.

“Maybe you don’t want to know,” she said.

I managed to send her a signal the way Georgia does, no words required.

She didn’t talk right away, but there was nothing hostile or defensive about this quiet.

“Maybe I don’t want to know, either,” she said at last. Mom looked down at her hands, fingers spread out on the counter.

“Maybe even the divorce was a way of protecting you,” I said. “Like he could see the future, a long time ago.”

“That’s one thing he could never see,” she said.

I waited.

“But you’re right. I wasn’t sure. I was afraid.”

When she was quiet now it was because she wanted to be fair to me—if I wanted to end this conversation, now was the time.

Mom took a few more moments before saying anything, getting my protein mix out of the cupboard, selecting a spoon. She said, “He always did things he shouldn’t do. Even back then, although I never asked questions. I stayed ignorant, by choice. He helped me start my business.”

“You profited from stealing,” I heard myself say, unable to shut my own mouth. “The same as he did.”

She didn’t speak for a few heartbeats. Then she said, “I don’t know for a fact that I profited from anything illegal. But I can’t be certain. When I heard he was going to plead, I couldn’t sleep at night. I destroyed all my old records—I didn’t know what an investigator might find there. But if I profited without knowing it, Bonnie, so did you. We all did.”

I went outside.

The carp in the fishpond spend their whole lives barely moving, bearded, with transparent fins, gills pumping. They are scarlet and gold, with inky black spots in places you would never expect, a tail, or a fin.

Mom joined me. She gave me a glass of protein drink, full to the brim, some of it leaking over, running onto her fingers. She washed the protein drink off her fingers in the fishpond, and the carp lifted toward her fingers, as though the stuff was something they could eat.