Chapter 5 - The Photograph in the Mirror
Sloane did not return to class that week.
Or the next.
Some mornings, she carried her dance bag downstairs and left it beside the door.
By afternoon, it was back in her closet.
We found a counselor who worked with teenagers, and Sloane chose to see her.
I stopped asking whether she felt better after every appointment.
Instead, I asked whether she wanted fries on the drive home.
Usually, she did.
Detective Ruiz kept us informed without promising a quick ending.
There were financial records to obtain, families to interview, and questions about where the donations had gone.
Grant had hired a lawyer.
His attorney sent Rob a letter suggesting the guarantee might be enforceable.
Our own attorney, Denise Avery, read it and placed it flat on her desk.
“A letter is a claim,” she said. “It is not a judgment.”
Rob exhaled.
She helped him formally dispute the debt and requested the documents behind it.
Meanwhile, the town began talking.
Grant had sponsored Little League uniforms and bought tables at charity dinners. People preferred the version of him they knew.
A neighbor asked whether Sloane had simply regretted volunteering.
I told her the matter was being investigated.
She said, “Of course,” in a tone that meant something else.
I cried in the grocery store parking lot afterward.
Then I went home and made dinner.
One evening, Sloane brought me her phone.
“There’s a picture I didn’t show the detective.”
I kept my voice even.
“Do you want to show me now?”
She sat beside me.
The photograph looked unimportant at first.
A stack of plastic cups. A clipboard. Part of a silver serving tray.
“I took it because of the envelope,” she said.
On the far side of the table, Grant’s hand rested on a thick white packet.
I enlarged the image.
A mirror behind him reflected the room.
In that reflection, the envelope was open.
Several checks lay on the desk beneath it.
One had a large blue logo across the top.
Rob came closer.
“That’s Westbridge Builders.”
His employer.
Sloane looked frightened.
“Did Dad give him that?”
“No,” Rob said immediately. “The company made a donation. Grant asked me to introduce him to our office manager.”
The check in the photograph showed a five-digit amount.
Below it lay another sheet.
I could make out only part of the heading.
APPROVED STUDENT TRANSPORT—
We sent the original image to Ruiz through the method she had provided.
She called the following morning.
“Please don’t edit or delete anything on the phone.”
“We haven’t.”
“Good. That photograph may help us identify records we need.”
She didn’t say more.
But three days later, Westbridge’s financial controller called Rob.
The company had donated fifteen thousand dollars for student transportation.
Grant had submitted supporting paperwork showing a program serving twelve teenagers.
Sloane was listed as one of them.
So was Owen.
Neither had received transportation through the supposed program.
Grant had claimed reimbursement for driving our daughter while telling us the rides were a personal favor.
The controller sounded sick.
“He used your name as a reference.”
Rob leaned against the counter.
“I know.”
That night, he brought out an old shoebox.
Inside were photographs from high school, fishing trips, our wedding.
Grant stood beside him in almost every important picture.
Rob studied one from the hospital after Sloane’s birth.
Grant was holding a balloon.
“I keep looking for the moment,” Rob said.
“What moment?”
“The one where he became somebody else.”
I sat next to him.
“Maybe we won’t find one.”
He turned the photograph facedown.
Upstairs, we heard music.
Very quiet.
A piano accompaniment from Sloane’s room.
Neither of us moved.
Then came a soft thump.
A pause.
Another.
She was practicing.
Not because anybody had asked.
Not because a recital was coming.
Just a few careful steps on the bedroom carpet.
Rob covered his mouth.
May you like
I reached for his hand.
We stayed there until the music stopped.
