The Man Across the Table

Charles called Thomas before Elena could say anything else.

"Are you my brother?"

For several seconds, all he heard was traffic on the other end.

Then Thomas said, "Yes."

Charles stared at the photograph.

"You have one chance to tell me the truth. Are you Richard Whitmore's son?"

"Yes, Charles. I am."

Something cold settled beneath his ribs.

"Come to Bellweather Lane."

"You're with Elena?"

"You know where it is, then. That saves us both an explanation."

He hung up.

Elena moved the untouched toast away from the edge of the table.

"I found out he was working with you eleven years ago," she said. "I didn't know when he first joined."

"Only eleven years of lying, then."

She accepted that without looking away.

Charles wished she would defend herself. He wanted somebody to argue with him so he could stop feeling like the only person in the family who had spent his evenings alone.

Thomas arrived forty minutes later.

Charles heard his familiar voice in the hallway, then the sound of Daniel stepping aside. His lawyer entered without his suit jacket, carrying his keys in a clenched hand.

For fifteen years, Thomas had faced Charles across polished desks and conference tables. Tonight he stood beside a refrigerator covered in magnetic letters.

"Sit down," Charles said.

Thomas sat.

"Why?"

"Which part?"

"Start with why you let me hire you."

Thomas laid his keys on the table. "My firm represented the seller in your Boston acquisition. You offered me a job six months later. I said no. You increased the salary and called me yourself."

Charles remembered. Thomas had dismantled an argument he was particularly proud of, and Charles had decided he wanted that irritating honesty working for him.

"You could have told me who you were."

"I know."

"Were you laughing at me?"

Thomas looked genuinely startled.

"No."

"You saw me search for her."

Elena inhaled sharply.

Thomas's face changed. "Yes. And I should have told you she was safe. Even when she begged me not to give you her address."

Charles turned toward his sister.

She nodded, tears standing in her eyes.

He let go of the table edge very carefully.

"You don't get to tell me how difficult this was for you," he said.

"I wasn't going to," Thomas answered.

The kitchen clock clicked through several seconds.

Then Thomas spoke again.

"At first, I thought it would be one transaction. By the time you offered the position, I'd spent months working with you. I liked you. I didn't expect that."

Charles gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

"I thought if I told you then, every conversation we'd had would turn into a scheme. You'd decide I had approached the company because I wanted something."

"So you decided for me."

"Yes. Then I kept deciding."

Charles had heard men justify killings with more confidence. Thomas looked exhausted by the simple admission.

"What did Father offer you?"

"Enough to cover most of my mother's treatment. In exchange, I agreed to stop approaching his family."

"You signed that?"

"She needed care. I was twenty-four, and I couldn't pay for it."

Charles looked at the elegant hands resting on the cheap table. He had seen those hands hold a pen steady while everyone else in a negotiation lost their temper.

"Did it help her?"

"It gave us more time."

Thomas's voice had roughened. Charles let the question end there.

Elena pushed the folder toward them. Thomas examined the papers without his usual speed.

"Samuel Price contacted me a month ago," he said. "These include proposed arrangements and signed records the current trustees need to review. An independent lawyer should handle the questions involving us. I can't advise you on my own interests."

"And what are those interests?"

Thomas looked up.

"I want the record to say who my mother was. I don't want her remembered as a woman who invented a story about a rich man."

"How much of the trust would go to you?"

Thomas pushed back his chair.

"I don't want your money."

Charles felt his temper rise. "I asked what the papers mean."

"And for twenty years that has been the first question anyone asks. What did I get? What did I take? What do I want now?"

"Tom," Elena said quietly.

"My mother worked two jobs. She kept every birthday card I made her. Richard sent checks through an office and couldn't bring himself to write his name on one. I wanted him to say I was his son. I never asked for a hotel."

He sat back down, breathing hard.

Charles looked at the watch beside his cup.

His father had ordered two, although he had three children.

The thought made him feel suddenly sick.

"All right," he said.

Thomas looked wary. "All right what?"

"I heard you."

It wasn't forgiveness. Charles could not offer that yet. But he could stop asking Thomas to prove he had never been hungry for anything their father had withheld.

Mrs. Bell tapped on the kitchen door a few minutes later. Lyla had refused to settle until she saw her mother.

She came in wearing star-patterned pajamas and carrying a stuffed rabbit by one ear. Her eyes widened when she saw Thomas.

"Uncle Tom!"

Thomas closed his eyes briefly.

Charles leaned back.

"Of course," he said.

Lyla climbed onto Thomas's lap. He caught her rabbit before it slid to the floor and adjusted her sleeve over her wrist.

"Did you bring a book?" she asked.

"I didn't know you would be awake."

"You always bring a book."

Charles watched Thomas smooth the child's tangled hair.

"You told me you didn't like children."

"I said I didn't like children being brought to business dinners."

"A distinction you might have clarified."

Lyla looked between them. "Are you fighting?"

Charles considered the question.

"We're having an argument."

She pulled her rabbit closer. "Do you have to go away after?"

Nobody answered immediately.

Charles saw Elena's hand tighten around the back of a chair. Thomas looked down at the child in his lap.

"No," Charles said at last. "I'm staying tonight."

Lyla nodded sleepily.

"Good. Mommy makes pancakes on Saturdays."

It was nearly midnight on Friday. Charles had a meeting scheduled for eight, a driver outside, and fifteen years of anger crowding his chest.

"Then I suppose," he said, "I'd better stay for breakfast."