Chapter 6
I stared at the wall while Nina gave me the address.
Mark had bought a house without telling me. He had made payments on it while he told Sophie we could not afford her dorm.
“Is he living there?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Nina said. “The ownership record shows him alone. Let me confirm the rest before you draw conclusions.”
I wrote down the address anyway.
After the call, I told Sophie. I expected her to get angry. She went very still.
“Does he have another family?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked toward the window. “I hate that every answer is worse.”
I wanted to take the question from her. All I could do was say, “I’m going to find out.”
Nina found the property listing from the previous year. It was a small house ten minutes from Rebecca’s retreat, bought as an investment. Rebecca recognized the address immediately.
“That’s where Mark said he was meeting contractors,” she told me. “He said he might use the garage for storage.”
“Did you ever go inside?”
“No. He always said it was a mess.”
Rebecca offered to drive by with me. Nina cautioned us to stay on the public road and take no risks. We did.
A FOR RENT sign stood in the yard. The windows were empty. No second family was waiting behind the curtains.
Relief came first. Then anger.
Mark had not only hidden the house. He had let Sophie think her education was unaffordable while he kept another asset for himself.
Nina reviewed the timeline with us. Mark bought the house before Rebecca’s lender trouble. The consulting payments had helped cover its costs. The transfer from Sophie’s fund had supported Rebecca’s retreat, which in turn paid Mark through Laurel Bridge. Some of those payments went to his mortgage.
Rebecca sat back in Nina’s office. “He used my business to move the money.”
“That is what the records suggest,” Nina said. “We still need the full accounts.”
Rebecca pressed her palms together. “I signed invoices because I trusted him.”
“So did I,” I said.
Across the table, Sophie studied a photograph of the little house. She turned it facedown.
“What happens now?”
Nina explained the steps she could take to seek repayment and protect our marital assets. Rebecca’s accountant was preparing corrected business records. The bank was reviewing the disputed transfers. None of it would happen before Monday.
Monday was when Sophie was supposed to leave.
We went home to my parents’ house and waited for the housing office.
At four, Ms. Alvarez called.
A room had opened in another residence hall. It was smaller and farther from the nursing building, but it was available. Sophie had until six to accept it.
Sophie took the phone with both hands.
“Yes,” she said. “I want it.”
After the call, my mother brought out the suitcase Sophie had left by the door. We all stood there looking at it.
She was going.
I expected joy to fill the room. Instead, Sophie began to cry.
“I thought I’d lost it,” she said.
My mother hugged her. I joined them, and for a while none of us spoke.
That night, Mark sent a message to Sophie.
I heard you got housing. I’m proud of you. I can help you move in.
She showed it to me, then sat on the bed to think.
“I want him to know I made it,” she said. “I don’t want to spend move-in day wondering what he’ll say.”
“You can tell him that.”
She wrote back:
I’m glad I have a room. I need move-in day to be calm. Grandma and Mom will take me. Please respect that.
He replied almost at once.
I’m still your father.
Sophie put down the phone.
I sat beside her. “You didn’t say he wasn’t.”
“He makes me feel like I did.”
The next morning, we loaded the car with boxes. My father tied a ribbon around the handle of the last suitcase. Sophie rolled her eyes and left it there.
At the university, Ms. Alvarez met us in the lobby. She remembered Sophie’s name and handed her a key.
It was such a small object. Sophie held it like it weighed more than the suitcase.
Her new roommate, a cheerful girl named Tessa, was already unpacking. Within ten minutes, the two of them were discussing shelf space and the quickest walk to the dining hall.
I helped Sophie make her bed.
When I reached for the empty box beneath it, I found her watching me.
“Mom, you can go,” she said gently. “I’m okay.”
“I know.”
I hugged her. She held on longer than she usually did.
“Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
My mother and I were halfway down the hallway when Sophie called after us.
“Mom?”
I turned.
“I’m going to be a nurse.”
“Yes,” I said. “You are.”
On the drive home, Nina called.
Mark had received the request for financial records. He had offered to discuss a settlement.
“He wants you to stop the bank review first,” she said.
May you like
I watched the campus disappear behind us.
“Then he hasn’t understood any of this,” I said.
