I didn’t comfort her. I just listened. When she was finished, I said, “Thank you for telling the truth,” and I hung up.
On January 10th, five days before the deadline, Richard and Patricia moved out.
They moved into a small furnished two-bedroom apartment in Tarrytown that my mother’s cousin Ellen helped them find. It rented for $2,900 a month, more than they’d been paying me for a whole house. It had no grand staircase and no dining room big enough for country club photographs. My father sold the leased Mercedes back to the dealership and bought a used Honda. My mother resigned from the country club.
David coordinated the move with the property manager. I stayed away until the last box was gone.
The day after they moved out, my father left me a voicemail.
“Nicole. It’s Dad.” A long pause. “I owe you an apology. I don’t know how to make it.”
I listened to it twice. He sounded confused, like a man being asked to explain a rule he’d never needed to understand before.
I saved the message and set my phone down. An apology could wait until he understood what his actions had meant for Leo.
My mother wrote me a letter. It came in the mail a week later, three pages in her elegant handwriting on her monogrammed stationery.
She admitted that she’d known since June that the company belonged to me. She’d stayed silent because she couldn’t bear for Richard to find out how completely I had rescued them. She’d been afraid he would feel small. She’d been afraid he’d feel like less of a man.
