“Family is family, Emma, and your father is worried,” she said.
She looked around the high-ceilinged lobby, her eyes lingering on the glass walls and the digital directory.
“He says there is some kind of technical error with the bank audit,” Chloe said. “He just wants to sit down and talk to you about it, to clear things up before it goes any further.”
She believed him. I could see the desperate hope in her eyes, the same hope she had carried when she chose to stay in the big house while I walked to the bus stop with my trash bags. She still believed that our family was just going through a difficult patch, that my father’s anger was just a temporary pressure.
“He does not want to talk to me, Chloe,” I said.
“That is not true,” she said, her voice rising slightly. “He has been talking about you for days, about how proud he is that you made something of yourself without any help.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and tapped the screen. The missed call count had reached ninety-four.
My father did not care about my success. He was calling because he had realized that the daughter he discarded was the one holding the keys to the audit that could destroy his entire operation. He was not calling out of love or regret; he was calling out of absolute panic because Mercer Freight was under audit and his survival depended on my silence.
“Go back downstairs, Chloe,” I said.
“Emma, please,” she said. “Just come down to the car for five minutes. Mom is there too, and they just want to explain.”
I looked at the screen of my phone as it began to vibrate once more, the name Robert flashing in the center of the display.
The past had finally caught up with me.
I poured the water into a paper cup and handed it to Chloe. She took it with both hands, her silver ring clicking against the paper. She did not drink. She just stared into the cup as if she could find the words she needed written in the water.
