She’d leave the key, along with a quart of milk and the other groceries on the list, after she picked up the mail the following Wednesday, as her mother returned Thursday morning.
She retrieved the mail from the box, tucked it under her arm before she unlocked the door, stepped into the foyer to deactivate the alarm. Closed the door, put the key back into her change purse.
She went back to the kitchen first, an HGTV contemporary marvel of stainless steel, white cabinets, white subway tile, farm sink, and walls the color of putty.
She dumped her bag, the mail on the central island, hung her raincoat over a backless stool. After setting her timer for an hour, she began opening windows.
Through the kitchen and great room, back to the living area—all open concept with glorious and gorgeous wide-planked flooring. Since the powder room had a window, she opened that, too.
Barely a breeze to stir the air, but the chore was on her list, and Breen followed the rules. Retrieve the mail to take upstairs. In the third bedroom, one her mother had redesigned into her office, she set the mail on the L-shaped counter that served as a workstation.
Café au lait–toned walls here, and chocolate leather for the desk chair. Ruthlessly organized shelves held awards—her mother had garnered quite a few—books, all work-related, and some framed photos, also work-related.
Breen opened the trio of windows behind the workstation and wondered, as she always did, why anyone would put their back to that view. All the trees, the brick buildings, the sky, the world.
Distractions, Jennifer told her when she’d asked. Work is work.
She opened the two side windows as well, the ones flanking a—locked—wooden filing cabinet.
Wide windowsills held thriving green plants in copper pots. She’d water those and the rest after she opened the other windows. Then she’d sort the mail, and wait out the timer. Close all the windows again, lock up, be done.
She opened them in the perfect, welcoming guest room—where she had never slept—in the guest bath, in the simple elegance of the master and its en suite.
She wondered if her mother ever took a man to that lovely bed with its summer-blue duvet and plumped pillows.
And immediately wished she hadn’t wondered.
She went back downstairs, started for the patio door, then backtracked as the phone in her bag rang.
She glanced at the readout—never answer unless you know who was calling—and smiled. If anyone could make this crappy day a little better, it was Marco Olsen.
“Hi.”
“Hi your own self. It’s Friday, girl.”
“I heard that.” She took the phone outside to the patio, with its stainless-steel table and chairs and the tall, slim pots on the corners.
“Then get your well-toned ass down to Sally’s. It’s happy hour, baby, and the first round’s on the house.”
“Can’t.” She turned on the hose, began to water the first of the pots. “I’m at my mother’s dealing with all that, then I have papers to grade.”
“It’s Friday,” he repeated. “Shake it loose. I’m on the bar till two, and it’s Sing-Out night.”
The one thing she could do in public without anxiety—especially after a drink and with Marco—was sing.
“I’ve got another”—she checked the timer on her wrist—“forty-three minutes here, and those papers won’t grade themselves.”
“Grade ’em Sunday. You’ve had the brood on, Breen, and that Grant ‘Asshole’ Webber’s not worth it.”
“Oh, it’s not just that—him. I’m in, you know, a kind of slump, that’s all.”
“Everybody gets dumped.”
“You haven’t.”
“Have, too. What about Smoking Harry?”
“You and Harry decided, mutually, your relationship in that area had run its course, and are still friends. That’s not getting dumped.”
She moved on to the next pot.
“You need some fun. If you’re not here in—I’m giving you three hours so you can go home and change, put some sexy on your face—I’m coming to get you.”
“You’re working the bar.”
“Sally loves you, girl. He’ll come with me.”
She loved Sally, drag queen extraordinaire, right back. She loved the club where she felt happy, loved the Gayborhood. Which was why she lived in the heart of it in an apartment with Marco.
“Let me get done here, then see how I feel when I get home. I’ve had a headache for the last couple hours—not making that up—and I had a stupid anxiety attack on the bus here that made it worse.”
“I’m coming to pick you up, take you home.”
“You are not.” She moved on to the third pot. “I took Tylenol, and it’s going to kick in.”
“What happened on the bus?”
“I’ll tell you later—it was just stupid. And you may be right—I could use a drink, some Marco, some Sally’s. Let me see how I feel when I get home.”
“You text me when you get there.”
“Fine, now go back to work. I’ve got one more pot out here, the plants inside, the stupid mail, and the damn windows.”
“You oughta say no sometime.”
“It’s not that big a deal. I’ll be done in under an hour, catch the bus home. I’ll text you. Go pour some drinks. Bye.”
She went inside, carefully locked the patio door before she filled the watering can to deal with the inside plants.
A breeze kicked up, had her standing by the window, eyes shut, letting it blow over her.
Maybe it would rain after all, a nice, steady spring rain.
It kicked up harder, surprising her because the sun continued to beam through the glass.
“Maybe we’re in for a storm.”
She wouldn’t mind that either. A storm might blow the damn headache away. And since Marco had given her three hours when two would do, she could spend that hour starting on the papers.
Less guilt that way.
Carrying the watering can, she started back upstairs while the wind—it had graduated from breeze—sent the window treatments flying.
“Well, Mom, your house is definitely getting aired out.”
She walked into the office, and into chaos.
The bottom filing cabinet drawer hung open—she’d have sworn it was locked. Papers winged around the room like birds.
Setting the watering can down, she rushed to grab at them, scoop them off the floor, snatch them from the air as the wind whirled.
Then died, like a door had slammed shut while she stood with her hands full of paperwork.
The ever-efficient Jennifer would be seriously displeased.
“Put it back, put it all back, tidy it all up. She’ll never know. And there goes my extra hour.
“Sorry, Marco, no Sally’s for me tonight.”
She picked up empty file folders, scads of paper, and sat at her mother’s workstation to try to sort them out.
The first file’s label puzzled her.
ALLIED INVESTMENTS/BREEN/2006–2013.
She didn’t have any investments, was still paying off her student loans for her master’s, and shared the apartment with Marco not just for the company, but to make the rent.
Baffled, she picked up another folder.
ALLIED INVESTMENTS/BREEN/2014–2020.
Another listed the information with the addition of: CORRESPONDENCE.
Had her mother started some sort of investment account for her, and not told her? Why?
She’d had a small college fund from her maternal grandparents, and had been grateful, as it helped her get through the first year. But after that, her mother made it clear she’d be on her own.
You have to earn your own way, Jennifer told her—repeatedly. Study harder, work harder if you ever want to be more than adequate.
Well, she’d studied in between two part-time jobs to manage the tuition. Then took out the loans she figured she’d be paying off this end of forever.
And she’d graduated—adequately—landed an adequate teaching job, then added to the debt because she’d needed that master’s degree to hold on to it.
But there were investments in her name? Didn’t make any sense.
She started to sort through the papers, intending to make stacks that applied to each folder.
She didn’t get far.
While she couldn’t claim to know or understand much about investments or stocks or dividends, she could read numbers just fine. And the monthly report—as it clearly stated—for May of 2014, when she’d been struggling to make ends meet, working those two jobs and eating ramen noodles, listed the bottom line in the account as over nine hundred thousand—thousand—dollars.
“Not possible,” she murmured. “Just not possible.”
But the name on the account was hers—with her mother’s name listed as well.
She pawed through others, found a consistency of a monthly deposit from the Bank of Ireland.
She pushed away from the workstation, walked blindly toward the windows as she yanked out the tie holding her hair back.
Her father. Her father had sent her money every month. Did he think that balanced just leaving her? Never calling or writing or coming to see her?
“It doesn’t, it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But . . .”
Her mother knew and hadn’t told her. Knew and let her think he’d simply vanished, stopped paying child support, left them both without a thought.
And he hadn’t.
She had to wait until her hands stopped shaking, her eyes stopped burning.
Then she went back to the workstation, organized the papers, read through the correspondence, studied the latest monthly report.
The resentment, the grief coalesced into a low and steady burn of fury.
Taking out her phone, she called the number for the account manager.
“Benton Ellsworth.”
“Yes, Mr. Ellsworth, this is Breen Kelly. I—”
“Ms. Kelly! What a surprise. It’s so nice to actually speak with you. I hope your mother is well.”