“Why was your mom so mad at you?”
She could have asked me anything else—if I’d felt neglected as a child （yes）， if I regretted staying in San Jose after college （no）， if I felt like a stupid twat face that I hadn’t seen this giant snub coming （duh!）， but the question of why my mom had disowned me was off-limits.
“Excuse me, I need to talk to Charlie,” I said. Because the story of how my mother came to hate Charlie and me was not one I was willing to tell.
CHAPTER 30
* * *
CHARLIE
“Hey,” I called after the woman who’d just stolen my inheritance. “Hey!”
By the time I caught up with her, she was already at the elevator, waiting for it to save her from my wrath.
“Who are you?” I demanded. She didn’t answer or even turn to look at me. “Hey! I asked you a question!”
“Leave her alone,” a male voice called out from behind me. I looked over to see my cousin Nathan jogging toward us.
Ding. The elevator arrived. The woman slipped in without so much as acknowledging me. I tried to follow, but Nathan grabbed me.
“Let go of my arm!”
“I know you’re upset,” Nathan said. “But don’t take it out on her.”
“In case you weren’t paying attention, that woman just got ten million dollars of my money,” I said, then corrected myself. “Our money. And you’re going to just let her walk away?”
“This was your mom’s doing. Lashing out at Ashley is not going to do any of us any good here.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, suddenly remembering how he’d called her by name in the room, too. “Do you know her?”
“Yes, no . . . Not really.”
“What does that mean?” I pressed. “Either you know her or you don’t.”
He hesitated, then confessed, “I went on a date with her.”
I felt like the floor had just fallen out from under me. I had to grab the wall for balance. What the hell kind of conspiracy is this?
“What’s shakin’， boys?” Winnie asked as she joined us in the vestibule. “And who was that woman who just put us in the poorhouse?”
“I’ll talk to her,” Nathan said. “We’ll work something out.”
“Oh! You know her?” Winnie asked.
“She’s his girlfriend,” I said, knowing my tone was accusatory and not caring one bit.
“It’s not like that,” Nathan insisted. “I only just met her. We went on one date.”
“Well! Your timing is excellent,” Winnie quipped.
“This isn’t funny, Winnie,” I shot back. “You heard what the lawyer said. That will is legally binding!”
“I’ll talk to her. Let’s just let the situation breathe for a day or two,” Nathan said, like being cut out of your inheritance was no big deal.
“I don’t have a day or two,” I snapped back. “I have kids. I took off work to come here—my wife and I both did. If I don’t get that money, I’m fucked.”
“Calm down, Charlie,” Winnie said. “Nathan said he’ll talk to her. It’s not like Mom gave her fortune to some rando she met in the street, which—let’s be honest—would have been even more catastrophic and completely in character.”
“How does Mom even know her?” I asked, still not grasping how Nathan’s girlfriend could have swooped in to steal our money. “Did you introduce them?”
“No!” Nathan insisted. “They’re neighbors. Your mom and I met her at the same time. She’s an actress; they just hit it off, I guess.”
“She pushed us aside in favor of an actress?” Winnie said, oozing fake surprise. “Well, that’s the first time she’s ever done that!” Her sarcasm was on point. My sister and I spent the entirety of our childhoods competing with actresses for our mom’s attention; it was downright predictable that her final act would be to choose one over us.
Winnie pressed the button for the elevator. The doors dinged open, and she stepped inside. “Are you coming?”
“I need to talk to the lawyer,” Nathan said. “I’ll meet you guys at the house.” If I’d thought Nathan had strong-armed my mother into leaving her money to his new flame, I might have been angry at him. But no one manipulated my mother. Nathan was the sheep to her wolf, as we all were.
Winnie and I rode down to the garage in silence. I could smell the alcohol seeping out of her pores. I knew she traveled with a flask and took nips of whiskey, or whatever hard alcohol she could get her hands on, when she thought no one was looking—she’d been doing it for years. I’d tried to call her on it in the past and it never ended well. So I avoided discussing it . . . and avoided her, to a large extent. A devoted brother might have forced the issue, and maybe someday I would. But I was too chickenshit to confront her, and now we had more pressing disasters to tackle than her long-gestating drinking problem.