Chapter 4 - The Bait
I helped Lucy stand and said we were going to the hospital.
Theresa blocked the door.
She accused me of disappearing for four years and coming back to treat my own family like criminals. I rolled up my sleeve and showed her the burn scars and cuts from years in the shop.
"I worked entire nights. I slept in a room with four other guys. I spent two Christmases completely alone so you wouldn't lack a single thing here."
"And we didn't," Theresa said.
I looked at Lucy.
"She did."
Brianna blamed me for leaving. Theresa said Lucy had brought everything on herself.
Lucy held tightly to my shirt, waiting for me to explode.
I didn't.
Instead, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.
Seventeen missed calls from a Canadian number were glowing on my screen.
There was also an email that had arrived while I was on the flight home.
I opened it slowly.
"You're right," I told Theresa. "Coming in here yelling won't fix anything."
Her shoulders loosened. Brianna stopped looking quite so nervous.
"We can talk like a family," I continued. "Actually, I have some news I was planning to give you tomorrow."
Theresa's attention shifted instantly from Lucy to the phone in my hand.
The email confirmed what those seventeen calls had been about: I had just received a million-dollar settlement.
I watched the information register on their faces before I added anything else.
I hadn't come home planning revenge. Until I walked into that backyard, I had still believed the money I'd sent had kept my wife safe.
Now I knew exactly what greed had already cost her.
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So I gave my family one detail about the settlement—and deliberately left out the part that mattered most.
Theresa took one step toward me.
