I realized then that I had been waiting for this moment.
I had been waiting for the final severance.
“Okay,” I said.
Mom sounded hopeful.
“Okay, you’ll help?”
“I’ll meet you,” I said. “Tomorrow morning. Nine a.m. at the cafe on Main Street, the one near your house.”
“Yes, yes, okay, we will be there. Oh, Isabella, thank you. I knew you were a good girl. I knew you wouldn’t abandon us.”
“Nine a.m.,” I repeated.
I hung up.
I did not go back to sleep.
I could not.
I went to the closet and opened the safe.
I pulled out the black binder.
I sat at my desk and opened it.
I flipped past the documents from ten years ago.
I turned to the back section.
You see, Mom was wrong about one thing.
She thought this was a surprise to me.
She thought I did not know.
But credit monitoring services are very good these days.
I had received an alert three weeks ago.
New inquiry.
Small business loan applicant:
Isabella.
I had not ignored it.
I had not called Mom.
I had called Mr. Mitchell.
He was retired now, but his son ran the firm.
We had already filed the police report.
We had already sent the affidavit to the lender.
The police were at Mom’s house tonight because I sent them there.
But they did not know that yet.
I looked at the papers in the binder.
The proof was absolute.
Elina had used my Social Security number, my old address, and a fake email address to secure fifty thousand dollars.
She had spent it in two weeks.
I traced the signature on the copy of the loan application.
It was sloppy this time.
She was desperate.
I closed the binder.
I went to the bathroom and showered.
I washed my hair.
I scrubbed my skin.
I wanted to be clean.
I put on a suit.
Navy blue.
Sharp.
Professional.
It was the kind of suit I wore to board meetings.
It was armor.
I drove the three hours to my hometown.
The sun came up as I drove.
The sky turned from black to gray to a brilliant cold blue.
I was not going there to save them.
I was going there to witness the end.
The cafe was familiar.
It used to be a bakery where Dad would buy us donuts on Sundays.
Now it was a trendy coffee shop with exposed brick walls and overpriced lattes.
I walked in at exactly nine a.m.
They were already there.
They sat at a table in the back corner, away from the windows.
They looked like refugees from a disaster.
Mom looked small.
Her hair was gray and unkempt, pulled back in a messy bun.
She was wearing a coat that looked too big for her.
She was twisting a napkin in her hands, shredding it into tiny white flakes.
Elina sat next to her.
She looked worse.
Her face was puffy from crying.
She wore no makeup.
She was wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up.
She looked like a teenager who had been caught shoplifting.
Not a thirty-two-year-old woman.
When they saw me, Mom’s face lit up with desperate, pathetic hope.
“Isabella,” she hissed, waving me over.
I walked to the table.
I did not smile.
I did not hug them.
I sat down in the chair opposite them.
I placed my black binder on the table.
“You look good,” Mom said, her eyes scanning my expensive suit, my polished shoes. “You look successful.”
“I am,” I said.
Elina would not look at me.
She stared at the table.
“Isabella,” Mom leaned in, whispering. “Thank you for coming. We don’t have much time. The detective gave us a card. He wants us to call him by noon. You just need to call him. Tell him you know about the loan. Tell him it was an authorized family arrangement.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Then they drop the case,” Mom said. “Then we figure out how to pay it back. Dad can sell his truck. I have a little jewelry. We’ll make payments.”
“You don’t have the money,” I said. “And Elina spent it all. I saw the records. Clothes. A trip to Vegas. Online gambling.”
Elina flinched.
“I was trying to win it back. I was trying to double it so I could pay you before you found out.”
“That’s not how it works, Elina,” I said. “That’s how addiction works.”
“She made a mistake,” Mom interrupted. “She’s sorry. Aren’t you, Elina?”
“I’m sorry,” Elina mumbled.
It sounded like a rehearsed line in a bad play.
“See?” Mom said. “She’s sorry. Now please, Isabella, make the call. For family.”
I looked at them.
Really looked at them.
For years, I had been afraid of these women.
I had been afraid of their judgment.
I had been afraid of their anger.
I had craved their love.
But looking at them now, I did not feel fear.
I did not feel love.
I did not even feel hate.
I felt nothing.
They were strangers.
Dangerous strangers who wanted to hurt me to save themselves.
“I can’t make that call,” I said.
“Why not?” Mom demanded. “Are you that heartless? Do you want your sister in prison?”
“I can’t make the call,” I said slowly. “Because I am the one who called the police.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
It sucked the air out of the corner of the room.