For one fleeting second, genuine shame appeared so clearly in his expression that I nearly believed it might be enough to save him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“About yesterday.
About everything.
I never should have put my hands on you.”
“No,” I answered.
“You shouldn’t have.”
“Can you let me inside?”
“No.”
His expression tightened.
“Mom, please.
Those Kessler people aren’t playing around.”
“I know.”
“They’re going to ruin my life.”
“You’ve done a great deal to help them.”
He seized the iron bars.
“I didn’t know what other choice I had!”
“You could have been honest.”
“You have no idea what it’s like.”
I almost smiled.
“I have no idea?”
His gaze dropped.
“I was sinking, Mom.
Everybody expected me to be somebody important.
I was Gloria Sutter’s son.
I couldn’t be ordinary.
I couldn’t let people see me fail.”
“So you deceived them.”
“Only a little at the beginning.”
“That’s how most disasters start.”
“I believed I could make everything right.”
“By borrowing two million dollars from men like Lyle Voss?”
Trevor’s eyes widened.
“You’ve spoken to Voss?”
“He came to this house.”
Fear transformed my son’s face so quickly that every trace of arrogance disappeared.
“What did he tell you?”
“That you took the money to keep Kristen from talking.”
Trevor released his grip on the bars and stumbled backward.
“Mom…”
I raised the envelope.
“She was preparing to seize everything.
Even my independence.”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
“That was what shocked me,” I continued.
“Not what Kristen was willing to do.
What you were willing to consider.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“Your name appears in the document.”
“I didn’t sign anything.”
“But you talked about it.”
He turned his face away.
Sometimes a mother desperately wants her child to lie.
Not a clumsy lie, but a beautiful, comforting one—something that makes it possible to sleep at night.
Trevor offered me no such comfort.
“I was frightened,” he whispered.
I nodded.
“And yesterday evening?”
He rubbed his face.
“I’d been drinking.”
“You weren’t too intoxicated to recognize that you could overpower me.”
“I thought you were trying to embarrass me.”
“No, Trevor.
I was trying to remind you that you still had a mother, before you turned her into an enemy.”
He stared at me through the iron bars.
A vehicle slowed briefly on the road behind him, then drove away.
“Are you going to help me?” he asked.
There it was.
Not a request for forgiveness.
Not a question about how he might repair the damage he had caused.
Only a plea for assistance.
The familiar refrain of an adult who had spent his life expecting someone else to solve his problems.
I considered him for a long moment.
“Yes,” I finally said.
Relief spread across his face.
Then I continued.
“I’ll help you tell the truth.”
His relief disappeared instantly.
“What?”
“I’ll arrange for you to speak with Howard.
I’ll help you assemble evidence of the fraud.
I’ll help you give up what doesn’t belong to you and confront the people you’ve borrowed from.
I’ll pay for proper legal representation, but I will not purchase your escape from responsibility.
I’ll pay to keep you safe, not to preserve your expensive habits.
You won’t receive cash from me.
I won’t conceal property.
And I will not tell lies to protect you.”
“Mom, those people are going to destroy me.”
“Your life as you’ve known it is already destroyed.
What you must decide now is whether you’re willing to rebuild yourself or let the wreckage bury you.”
Something changed in his eyes.
The old resentment returned, not completely, but enough for me to recognize it.
“So that’s your answer?
You sell my home and stand behind a gate giving me lectures?”
“I sold property that belonged to me after you physically attacked me.”
His jaw muscles tightened.
“There you are,” I murmured.
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s the man who stood in front of me last night.”
Trevor lowered his gaze.
His breathing grew heavier.
“I’m doing my best.”
“No.
You’re negotiating.”
He covered his face with both hands and dragged them downward.
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
“Tell the truth.”
“I already have!”
“Every bit of it.”
He became completely motionless.
I watched his expression closely.
He blinked once, unnaturally slowly.
There was still something he hadn’t revealed.
“Trevor,” I said.
Before he could answer, his telephone rang.
He glanced at the display.
All the color drained from his face.
I knew who was calling even before he showed me the screen.
Kristen.
With trembling fingers, he answered and activated the speaker.
Her voice emerged from the device, bright and icy.
“Are you standing there with her?”
Trevor looked toward me.
Neither of us responded.
Kristen laughed quietly.
