Chapter 3 - The Secret Our Father Buried
The click of the deadbolt sounded louder than it should have.
I looked at Liam's hand on the lock.
"What are you doing?"
"Making sure Mom and Dad don't walk in."
"They're twenty feet down the hall."
"Exactly."
His voice was barely above a whisper.
I studied him.
The brother standing across from me wasn't the man who had walked in carrying groceries earlier.
The smile was gone.
So was the relaxed posture.
His shoulders were rigid.
His eyes kept moving toward the hallway.
"You forged letters for ten years," I said.
"Keep your voice down."
"You stole money intended for our parents."
"Isaac."
"How much?"
He said nothing.
"How much, Liam?"
His jaw flexed.
"I don't know."
That answer nearly made me laugh.
"You don't know?"
"It happened over years."
"So give me an estimate."
He looked away.
I moved between him and the cabinet.
"No more changing the subject."
"You don't understand."
"Then explain it."
"You were never here."
The sentence landed unexpectedly.
I stared at him.
Liam continued.
"You sent money. Great. Congratulations. But you weren't here."
"I was serving."
"I know what you were doing."
"Apparently you don't."
"I was the one taking Dad to doctors. I was the one getting calls when Mom couldn't breathe. I was the one fixing pipes at two in the morning."
"So you paid yourself?"
"That's not what happened."
"Then what happened?"
His eyes flashed.
"You got to be the hero from six thousand miles away."
My hands tightened.
"This isn't about me."
"It became about you the second you walked through that door judging everything."
"I'm judging the fact our parents are eating stale bread while hundreds of thousands of dollars disappeared."
Liam flinched slightly.
There it was.
Hundreds of thousands.
I hadn't known the exact amount yet.
But his reaction told me I wasn't far off.
"How much?" I repeated.
He lowered his voice.
"Not here."
I looked toward our parents' room.
"You're right."
For the first time, he seemed relieved.
"Tomorrow morning, we're going to the bank."
His relief disappeared.
"No."
"Then we'll go to the police."
His eyes snapped back to mine.
"You think you're going to arrest your own brother?"
"I think you're going to explain where every dollar went."
"Some of it went to them."
"How much?"
He didn't answer.
"Look around this house."
"You weren't here when things got bad."
"You keep saying that like it excuses fraud."
He stepped closer.
"Do you know what Dad did after you left?"
I froze.
"What are you talking about?"
"Do you know why he stopped working?"
"His knees."
Liam gave me a bitter smile.
"That's what they told you."
I looked toward the bedroom.
"Stop playing games."
"I'm not."
"Then say it."
He inhaled slowly.
"Dad's construction business was collapsing before your second year away."
I knew Dad's company had struggled.
I hadn't known how badly.
"So?"
"He borrowed money."
"From who?"
"Everybody."
Liam rubbed his face.
"Banks. Friends. Suppliers."
"That still doesn't explain my transfers."
"No. But it explains the beginning."
I waited.
Liam sat on the edge of the couch.
For the first time, he looked exhausted.
"Dad owed almost eighty thousand dollars."
My anger paused.
"Eighty?"
"More after penalties."
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Dad made me promise."
"So you used my money."
"At first."
The words came so quietly I nearly missed them.
I stared at him.
"You used money I sent for medicine to cover Dad's debt?"
"If I hadn't, they would have taken this house."
"You could have told me."
"You were deployed."
"I had a phone."
"You had classified missions and three-minute calls."
"You still could have told me."
"Dad begged me not to."
I looked at the hallway.
That sounded like him.
My father had always been proud.
Too proud sometimes.
But it didn't explain the letters.
It didn't explain ten years.
"What happened after the debt was paid?"
Liam looked down.
I already knew I wasn't going to like the answer.
"I made some investments."
I stared at him.
"You what?"
"I thought I could replace the money."
"What investments?"
"Property at first."
"With their money?"
"With money I intended to return."
"You mean my money."
His face hardened.
"Yes."
The word hung between us.
"I bought a small parcel outside Mesa. I thought development was coming."
"Did it?"
"No."
"How much did you lose?"
"Thirty-two."
"Thirty-two thousand?"
He nodded.
I laughed once in disbelief.
"And then?"
"I tried to recover it."
That sentence told me everything.
People who said they "tried to recover it" rarely meant they had worked overtime and saved carefully.
"What did you do?"
"A business deal."
"What business?"
"A restaurant partnership."
"How much?"
"Forty-five."
I felt sick.
"And then?"
He stood.
"We don't need to go through every mistake tonight."
"Every mistake?"
I pointed at the wooden box.
"You manufactured a decade of letters telling our parents I didn't love them."
His expression cracked.
"I needed them to stop asking questions."
"You didn't just steal money."
"I know."
"You stole me."
Liam stared at me.
I could feel my pulse behind my eyes.
"For ten years, they thought their son was ashamed of them."
His voice broke slightly.
"I know."
"Mom apologized to me tonight for asking why I didn't visit."
He looked away.
"Dad thought I didn't want him at my ceremonies."
"I know."
"Stop saying you know!"
The sound came out louder than I'd intended.
From down the hall, a mattress creaked.
Both of us went silent.
We waited.
No footsteps.
I lowered my voice.
"What were you afraid they'd find out?"
Liam didn't answer.
"You said there were things they couldn't survive knowing."
His face changed again.
"Some of your money went somewhere else."
"Where?"
He rubbed his palms together.
"Isaac, you need to understand something first."
"No."
"Just listen."
"I've spent ten years listening to lies."
His eyes met mine.
"I have a son."
The words stopped me.
"What?"
Liam looked toward the floor.
"A boy."
I almost thought I'd misunderstood.
"You have a child?"
"He's nine."
I stared at him.
"What's his name?"
"Caleb."
I'd never heard that name.
"Where is he?"
"With his mother."
"Who?"
"Rachel Moreno."
I remembered Rachel.
She had dated Liam briefly before I left.
"What does this have to do with the money?"
Liam's voice became strained.
"Caleb was born with serious heart problems."
The anger inside me collided with something else.
Confusion.
"He had surgery before he was six months old."
"Why didn't anyone tell us?"
"Rachel didn't want Dad involved."
"Why?"
Liam closed his eyes.
"Because Dad threatened her."
"What?"
"She was twenty-three. I was twenty-seven. When she told me she was pregnant, I panicked."
He gave a humorless laugh.
"I told Dad before I told anyone else."
"And?"
"He offered Rachel money to leave."
I stared at him.
"Our father?"
"He said she was trapping me."
I tried to reconcile that with the frail man sleeping down the hall.
"She refused."
Liam continued.
"Then Caleb was born sick. Hospital bills started coming. Insurance covered some, not all."
"And you used my money."
"Yes."
"How much?"
"At first, a few thousand."
"Then?"
"More."
"How much, Liam?"
"Over the years?"
His eyes filled with shame.
"About one hundred and twenty thousand."
My knees almost weakened.
"You stole a hundred and twenty thousand dollars?"
"For surgeries."
"That wasn't your money!"
"I know!"
His voice rose.
"Do you think I don't know that?"
Again we stopped.
Again we listened for movement down the hall.
Liam pressed both hands against his forehead.
"I kept thinking I would fix it."
"By lying?"
"By earning it back."
"With failed investments."
"At first."
My stomach sank.
"At first?"
He didn't answer.
I stepped closer.
"What came after the investments?"
He looked at me.
There was terror in his eyes now.
Not embarrassment.
Not guilt.
Terror.
"Liam."
He swallowed.
"I borrowed against the house."
I looked toward the walls around us.
"You did what?"
"Mom and Dad didn't know."
"How could you borrow against a house you don't own?"
"I had Dad sign papers."
"What papers?"
"He thought they were related to property taxes."
I stared at him.
The room seemed to shrink.
"How much?"
"Sixty-five thousand."
"Where is it?"
"Gone."
My chest tightened.
"Is the house in foreclosure?"
"No."
"Are payments current?"
"For now."
"For now?"
He stood.
"I've been covering them."
"With what?"
"My salary."
"Liam, you work in auto sales."
"I manage the dealership now."
"That doesn't explain all of this."
He hesitated.
Then I understood.
There was still something else.
"The box," I said.
"What?"
"You weren't afraid I'd discover the letters. You were afraid of something underneath them."
He said nothing.
I knelt beside the wooden box.
I removed the forged letters.
Then the bank documents.
Beneath everything was a false wooden panel.
Liam's face drained of color.
"Isaac."
I ran my finger along the edge.
"Don't."
I lifted it.
Underneath were three envelopes.
One contained mortgage documents.
The second contained photographs of a boy in a hospital bed.
Caleb.
The third held paperwork from a company I didn't recognize.
Perkins Residential Holdings LLC.
My brother's name was listed as managing member.
There were four properties.
Not one.
Four.
I looked up slowly.
"You bought houses."
"They were investments."
"With whose money?"
He didn't answer.
My throat tightened.
"You told me our parents needed roof repairs."
"Isaac—"
"You told me Mom needed medical treatments."
"Some of that was true."
"You told me Dad needed a new furnace."
"I know."
"Where did that money go?"
His silence answered.
I flipped through the papers.
One property had been sold for a profit.
Another was currently rented.
Then I saw the address of the fourth.
It was in Scottsdale.
I knew that neighborhood.
Homes there weren't cheap.
"Who lives here?"
Liam stared at the floor.
"Rachel."
My anger hardened.
"And Caleb."
He nodded.
I looked at the papers again.
The house was valued at nearly half a million dollars.
"Did you buy her this house?"
"I bought my son stability."
"With our parents' medicine money?"
"He almost died twice!"
"And that gave you permission to let Mom freeze?"
His face crumpled.
"No."
"To forge my handwriting?"
"No."
"To convince them I hated them?"
"No!"
He slammed a hand against the wall.
Then everything went silent.
A light turned on in the hallway.
Mom's voice came from behind us.
"Who is Caleb?"
Liam froze.
I turned.
Mom stood in the hallway wearing her robe.
Dad was behind her, leaning on his taped cane.
Neither looked sleepy anymore.
Mom stared at Liam.
"Who is Caleb?"
No one answered.
Dad's face slowly changed.
Then he whispered, "Oh, God."
Mom turned toward him.
"You know?"
Liam shut his eyes.
Dad gripped the cane with both hands.
May you like
And for the first time that night, I realized my brother wasn't the only man in the house who had been keeping secrets.
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