Chapter 6 - Caleb Chose Silence Again
The false signature changed everything.
Rachel would not call it forgery until a document examiner reviewed it.
But the date made authenticity difficult to explain.
Caleb stopped answering me.
Tiffany did the opposite.
She called from their honeymoon in St. Lucia.
“Are you seriously threatening Caleb’s company because you got embarrassed at my wedding?”
“This started six years before your wedding.”
“Diane said the money was family money.”
“Diane was wrong.”
Tiffany laughed bitterly.
“You’ve always hated that Caleb has a life you don’t.”
That sentence sounded too familiar.
“Did my mother tell you that?”
Silence.
Then:
“Everybody knows.”
No.
Everybody had been told.
That distinction finally mattered.
Ethan heard part of the conversation.
After I hung up, he asked:
“Does Aunt Tiffany hate us?”
“She doesn’t know us very well.”
“She knows Uncle Caleb.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Ethan had adored Caleb.
Before Tiffany entered the family, Caleb took him to minor-league baseball games and helped build his science-fair volcano.
Over the previous year, those afternoons disappeared.
I blamed marriage planning.
Ethan interpreted it differently.
“Maybe Uncle Caleb likes them better.”
“Them?”
“People who aren’t embarrassing.”
My mother’s language had reached him.
That was the cost no bank statement could calculate.
When Caleb returned from his honeymoon, he finally met me at Rachel’s office.
He looked exhausted.
“Mom probably signed it herself.”
“Probably?”
“I wasn’t involved back then.”
Rachel asked:
“When did you first learn Grace had not received the payments?”
Caleb’s knee started bouncing.
“I don’t remember.”
“Was it before your wedding?”
“I said I don’t remember.”
I knew my brother.
When Caleb was fourteen, he broke Dad’s garage window and denied it for six hours because he was terrified of disappointing him.
His face looked exactly the same now.
May you like
I leaned forward.
“Caleb, what did Mom make you afraid I would find?”
