I’m going to respect that request.”
Her shoulders relaxed.
Ryan’s didn’t.
He knew there was another sentence coming.
I closed the folder.
“I’ve also stopped authorizing my corporate accounts to fund this townhouse after I leave.”
Beatrice stared at me.
Ryan put his phone down.
“What do you mean, stopped?” he asked.
“I mean exactly that.”
“You can’t just cancel everything.”
“I can stop paying for a home I’ve been told to leave.”
Beatrice’s expression hardened.
“This is childish.”
“No.
Childish would have been screaming yesterday.
This is accounting.”
Ryan pushed back from the table.
“Can we talk privately?”
“We could have talked privately yesterday.”
His jaw flexed.
“My mother was upset.”
“Your mother was drinking tea.”
Beatrice slapped her spoon onto the saucer.
“Don’t speak about me as if I’m not here.”
I turned toward her.
“You’re here.
That’s exactly why we’re having this conversation.”
For the first time since I had known her, Beatrice appeared unsure what expression to wear.
She had spent years treating money like background music.
The townhouse existed.
The rent got paid.
The refrigerator stayed full.
Dinners happened.
Repairs happened.
She never asked what machinery kept any of it moving because she had decided the answer was her son.
Ryan had never corrected her.
I had.
Quietly, every month.
Beatrice recovered quickly.
“Well, Ryan can take over the payment.”
She said it with such confidence that I nearly felt sorry for him.
Ryan rubbed the back of his neck.
“Mom.”
“What?”
He stared at the marble countertop.
“I can’t carry fifty-six hundred a month by myself.”
The sentence landed harder than any shouting could have.
Beatrice looked at him as though he had spoken in another language.
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“I mean I can’t.”
“But you’ve lived here for five years.”
“Yes.”
“And you never said—”
He finally looked at her.
“I never said I was paying the rent.”
