‘It might sound a little too much,’ Heather continued, ‘but I just thought it would be nice if we got to know each other better as women . . . without your dad around.’
Rob and Michelle were sitting forward in their chairs, absolutely thrilled, mouthing things to each other and beaming. The new girlfriend. Calling!
‘I’m sorry, Heather – like I said, this isn’t a great time. I have guests here.’
‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘Of course. So sorry.’
Tully knew she should say, I’ll be in touch about lunch, or, I’ll call you later and we can make a plan. But her brain seemed to have temporarily cut off access to such social graces, so instead she said, ‘Bye,’ and hung up the phone.
As she returned her phone to the table she noted Rob and Michelle’s delighted, scandalised faces and knew she was expected to provide juicy details. She herself would have appreciated the juicy details in a similar situation. And why not? Not only would it please her audience, there was a good chance it would be therapeutic to share all the sordid, peculiar details. The problem was, she wanted to save those details for the one person who would understand exactly how she felt. The one who’d reached out to her just a few days ago. The one who, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t seem to connect with.
Rachel.
8
RACHEL
Ninety-seven thousand, three hundred and seventy-two dollars.
Rachel sat on her bedroom floor, surrounded by crumpled bills. She had pulled the money out of the hot-water bottle note by note, first with her fingers, then with tweezers, and finally, when the cash kept coming, she’d taken a pair of scissors and cut through the bottle. The hot-water bottle cover was also full of bills.
Ninety-seven thousand, three hundred and seventy-two dollars. Where did Mum get that kind of money?
Was it even hers?
Logically, it couldn’t have been. Even before Mum started showing signs of dementia, she and Dad had been old-school when it came to money. Back in the day, Dad gave Mum ‘housekeeping’ money; more recently, if Mum needed something, Dad just bought it for her, or Rachel or Tully did. Mum simply didn’t have access to this sort of money. Which meant it had to be stolen – but from where? And how?
It was true that Mum had done some strange things these past few years. On top of the shoplifting, she’d signed up with virtually every energy company that rang up to offer special rates. She’d taken the dog for a walk using an old scarf because she couldn’t find the leash （only to realise later that she didn’t have a dog; it belonged to the neighbour）。 She’d repeatedly tried to enter the house via the window rather than the door. But unlike the shoplifting or the dog-stealing or window-entering, stashing away this amount of money required some premeditation and planning. After all, even if she was to swipe an entire grocery store till （which Rachel couldn’t imagine）， it still wouldn’t contain $97,000.
It made no sense.
‘Where, Mum?’ Rachel said out loud. ‘Where did you get all this money?’
She looked at it, laid out on the floor. The only thing she’d found inside the hot-water bottle besides the cash was a folded piece of paper, torn from a spiral notebook. On it were two names: Tully and Fiona Arthur.
Rachel had never heard the name Fiona Arthur, so she focused instead on Tully. Why had Mum written Tully’s name? Was the money meant for Tully? Admittedly, Mum was always worried about her oldest daughter. A mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child, she used to say. And while Tully wasn’t unhappy, exactly, she was never exactly happy either. True, she’d settled a bit since meeting Sonny and having the boys, but she was still . . . Tully. Maybe this money was supposed to help with that somehow.
Rachel jumped as her phone began to ring. It was Heather. She was intrigued, but not enough to answer. She had enough to deal with right now without adding her father’s fiancée to the equation. She stabbed at the screen to silence it, but unfortunately, in her haste, she accidentally accepted the call. Worse still, it was a WhatsApp call – with video. After a second, Heather’s face appeared on the screen.
‘Rachel?’
‘Heather!’ Rachel scrambled to grab the phone and then turned away to ensure the money wasn’t visible. ‘Hello. Sorry, I . . . um . . . dropped the phone.’
‘No, I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to do a video call. Your dad added me to the family WhatsApp and it’s not my strong suit.’
‘It’s fine,’ Rachel said. ‘What can I do for you?’