Chapter 4 - The 7:42 AM Collapse
The morning sun came up pale and sharp, cutting through the frost on the office window. At exactly 7:42 AM, the screen of my phone lit up with the seventeenth missed call from Daniel.
When I finally swiped the screen to answer, his voice came through the speaker in a high, ragged pitch that sounded nothing like the composed salesman he pretended to be.
"Claire! What did you do?"
I sat up, stretched my stiff neck, and took a sip of cold water from the glass on my desk. "Good morning, Daniel. Merry Christmas."
"Dad just went online to check his social security deposit," Daniel stammered, his breath coming in shallow gasps. "The nine hundred dollars wasn't there. He called the branch manager at home! The branch manager told him the incoming wire from our joint account was canceled yesterday at eleven o'clock!"
"That's correct," I said evenly. "I canceled it."
"Are you out of your mind?" he shouted. I could hear the echo of a bathroom in the background; he was hiding somewhere in his parents' house to make the call. "His property tax assessment is due on Tuesday! His heart medication copay clears on the first! If that money isn't in his account, the bank will hit him with overdraft penalties! You're punishing an old man because Rebecca lost her temper!"
"Walter doesn't need to worry about penalties," I replied, keeping my voice smooth and rhythmic. "After all, he carries his own weight. That's what he tells everyone at the diner, isn't it? A Bennett man never lives off another man's labor."
"Claire, stop it! Transfer the money back! We can talk about everything else later, but don't do this to my father on Christmas morning!"
"Whose money, Daniel?"
The line went dead silent.
"What did you say?" he whispered.
"Whose money are you asking me to transfer?"
"Our money," he stammered. "The money from our account."
"There is no our money," I said, letting each syllable land like a hammer on concrete. "The twenty-four thousand dollar severance you promised was in savings never existed. The thirty-five thousand you pulled from our home equity line went to Rebecca’s fake real estate business. You haven't earned a single dollar since March fourteenth. For six years, every single cent that paid Walter’s mortgage came out of my hospitality bonus pool. You never gave your father a dime of your own money, Daniel. You gave him mine."
A choking sound came through the phone. "Claire... listen to me... I was going to pay it back... Rebecca has a closing next month..."
"Rebecca doesn't have a closing, Daniel. She doesn't even have an active license. I checked the state board registry two hours ago. It lapsed in August."
"Please," he whimpered. "Dad is sitting at the kitchen table with his bank records. He thinks there’s a glitch in the credit union system. He's about to drive down to the local branch with his old badge."
"Then you’d better go into that kitchen and tell him the truth," I said. "Because if you don't, I will be there in thirty minutes with every printed bank statement from the last six years."
May you like
"You wouldn't," he whispered.
"Try me," I said, and ended the call.
