Chapter 5 - The Truth About the Money
Tristan didn't hook up the trailer; he left it by the shelterbelt and drove Dad back to town in his pickup, the tail lights disappearing down the county gravel like two red embers fading into the twilight. But they didn't go back to the Trailside Inn. At eight o'clock that evening, while Erin was sweeping the broken glass from the cottage doorway and I was nailing a temporary sheet of exterior plywood over the frame, an unfamiliar gray sedan pulled into our yard.
It was Desiree, Tristan’s wife. She hadn't stayed behind in Fargo after all; she had driven out two days behind them with their two-year-old boy strapped in the back seat, desperate to stop the financial bleeding that was destroying her home.
She didn't get out of the car screaming. She got out looking pale, exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes that no amount of makeup could hide. She held her little boy against her hip, her hands trembling as she approached the porch where Erin and I were working.
""Tyson,"" she whispered, her voice rough from hours on the interstate. ""I didn't want this. You have to believe me. Tristan lied to you, and your father lied to him.""
Erin set her broom down against the rail, her motherly instinct instantly overriding the anger that had defined our afternoon. She stepped down from the porch, walked over to Desiree, and gently touched the sleeping boy's arm. ""Come inside, Desiree. Come into the big house. Let's get him some milk and put him down on the sofa.""
Ten minutes later, we were sitting around the kitchen table in our farmhouse. Desiree had a cup of chamomile tea between her palms, staring down into the dark amber liquid like she was looking for answers at the bottom of a dry well.
""Tristan told you we took ninety thousand dollars from your parents to finish our basement,"" Desiree said, looking straight at me.
""That's what Mom said on the Fourth,"" I replied. ""She said they gave Tristan ninety grand and you locked them out.""
Desiree let out a short, bitter laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping on a sidewalk. ""Your parents didn't give us ninety thousand dollars, Tyson. Tristan owed a private lending company seventy thousand dollars from a failed subcontracting business he hid from me for two years. He had liens on his equipment, and the bank was ready to foreclose on our primary home in Fargo before we even made our third payment. Frank—your father—knew all about it. He took the money from the sale of their Fargo house, paid off Tristan's personal creditors so Tristan wouldn't lose his contractor's license, and then they cooked up a story that they were moving in with us to keep the family looking spotless to their church group.""
I sat back in my chair, the air leaving my lungs. ""And the basement?""
""There never was a finished basement plan,"" Desiree said, tears finally breaking over her lashes. ""Our house in Fargo is built on a high-water table slab. We don't even have a basement, Tyson! It's a three-bedroom ranch! They moved three truckloads of heavy mahogany furniture into my living room, dumped an old mattress on the sunporch floor, and your father started telling me what time I was allowed to run the laundry and who was permitted in my own home. When I told Frank he couldn't smoke his cigars in the garage next to the baby's nursery, he told me that he bought the house, so he owned the air inside it.""
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Erin looked at me, her eyes wide with disbelief. ""So the Fourth of July trip wasn't a visit at all.""
""No,"" Desiree sobbed, burying her face in her hands. ""Frank told Tristan that you were making good union wages on the railroad, that you had acreage and an empty guest house you built for fun. He told Tristan that if they brought the trailer out here and made enough noise, you'd roll over just like you used to when you were a teenager, because you wouldn't have the guts to stand up to your mother's crying in public. They were planning to squat in that cottage until you gave up and signed it over to them.""
