Chapter 3 - WHAT NINA REMEMBERED
The next morning Nina refused to go to school.
Not dramatically.
She put on her backpack, walked to the front door, and stopped.
“I don’t have my good jeans.”
“You have other jeans.”
She stared at her sneakers.
“Grandma Sylvia said people can tell what kind of family you come from by your clothes.”
I set my coffee down.
“When did she say that?”
Nina shrugged.
“A lot.”
There are moments when a parent understands that the event they witnessed was only the first event the child finally had words for.
I sat beside her.
“Tell me what happened yesterday.”
Sylvia had come into the guest room while Nina was coloring.
She pulled clothes from the closet one by one.
Too childish.
Too bright.
Too cheap.
Then she held up the yellow dress.
Nina had bought it with twenty-three dollars she saved from birthday money.
“She asked why you let me dress like Daddy doesn’t make enough money.”
My throat tightened.
“What did you say?”
“I said I picked my own clothes.”
Nina rubbed the pink sock between her fingers.
“She said that was the problem.”
I kept her home.
Then I called the donation service Sylvia regularly used.
No pickup had been made at the Whitmore address.
Not yesterday.
Not that week.
The woman on the phone checked twice.
When I hung up, I remembered Sylvia’s certainty at dinner.
The donation pickup came this afternoon.
She had lied.
I called Monique.
She declined the first call.
The second.
On the third, she answered.
“What do you want?”
“Nina’s clothes.”
Silence.
“Your mother lied about donating them.”
Another silence.
Then a door closed on Monique’s end.
“They’re not gone.”
“Where are they?”
“I shouldn’t be in the middle of this.”
“You were sitting at the table.”
“I know.”
“Then you already are.”
Monique lowered her voice.
“Mom boxed them. I saw two storage tubs in the garage.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
“Elena—”
“Tell me.”
Monique breathed slowly.
“Andrew told them you were getting difficult about the company.”
I stood up.
“What?”
“He said you’d started questioning expenses and might not support the next financing round.”
I looked through the doorway at Nina sitting on my bed with crayons spread around her.
“What does that have to do with my daughter?”
“I think Mom thought…” Monique stopped.
“Thought what?”
“That Nina was the reason you wouldn’t give Andrew more money.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
Andrew had told his parents far more than he ever admitted.
And apparently he had told them something about me that wasn’t true.
That afternoon, I opened the locked cabinet in my home office.
Inside were eighteen months of North River Capital statements.
I had never examined the Whitmore account personally after the initial closing.
May you like
I had trusted Andrew.
For the first time, I decided not to.
