I placed the folder on the table and opened it.
Steven stared at it as if he recognized the shape before he understood what it meant.
His phone was still against his ear.
Thomas’s voice crackled faintly from the other end.
“Dad?”
Steven didn’t answer him.
His eyes stayed on me.
“How long have you been standing there?”
I pulled out a chair and sat across from him.
For five years, almost every conversation between us had taken place with me standing—lifting, carrying, stirring, cleaning, reaching, adjusting.
That afternoon, I sat.
“Long enough,” I said.
Steven lowered the phone.
“You were listening to a private conversation.”
I almost smiled.
Of all the things he could have said, that was what offended him.
Not that he had called me free labor.
Not that he and his son were discussing how quickly I would be removed after his death.
Not that he had hidden money while I stretched every household dollar.
He was angry that I had heard him.
Thomas was still speaking through the phone.
“What’s going on?”
Steven ended the call.
Then his voice changed.
It became softer, the voice he used with nurses and therapists when he wanted to appear patient and reasonable.
“Brenda, whatever you think you heard—”
“I know what I heard.”
“People joke.”
“For five years?”
He looked away.
I removed the first stack from the folder and placed it between us.
Copies of bank statements.
The details faced me, not him.
I didn’t need him reading anything.
He knew what they were.
“Where did you get those?”
There it was.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
“From our records.”
“You had no business going through my personal papers.”
“Interesting word.
Personal.”
He shifted in his chair.
I put down another stack.
Deposit slips associated with Thomas.
Steven’s mouth tightened.
“I can give my son money if I want to.”
“You can explain that to my lawyer.”
For the first time, his expression truly changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
Small at first.
A tightening around his eyes.
A pause before his next breath.
“Your what?”
