Chapter 5 - ETHAN’S QUESTION
Ethan walked away from the crowd.
He stopped beneath one of the oak trees and stared across the lawn.
I followed him.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Finally he turned.
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That she was using me.”
“I suspected her family was using your name.”
He looked hurt.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I needed evidence.”
“You could have trusted me.”
“I do trust you.”
He shook his head.
“No, Mom.”
His voice was low.
“You trusted an investigation.”
That landed harder than anything Vanessa had said.
I looked at my son.
He was thirty-four years old.
Successful.
Capable.
And suddenly, because I had tried to protect him, I had made him feel like a child.
“You’re right.”
He blinked.
I rarely surrendered a point that quickly.
“I should have told you about the documents as soon as I received them.”
His shoulders loosened slightly.
“But I won’t apologize for coming here dressed this way.”
“Why?”
“Because paper can tell me whether someone is dishonest with money.”
I looked toward Vanessa.
“Only powerlessness tells you whether someone is cruel.”
Ethan’s expression changed.
He looked back toward the woman he had planned to marry.
Vanessa was arguing quietly with her mother.
George was speaking urgently into his phone.
Daniel, the server, had returned to work.
The difference between them was almost painful.
One young man with almost nothing to gain had tried to help me.
A family with everything to lose had humiliated me.
Ethan rubbed his forehead.
“I loved her.”
“I know.”
“I was going to marry her in six weeks.”
“I know.”
“She wasn’t like this with me.”
“That is how people like Vanessa survive.”
He looked at me.
“People like Vanessa?”
“People who behave according to someone’s usefulness.”
He said nothing.
I continued.
“When you were Ethan Carter, she was loving.”
“When I appeared to be a poor stranger, I was disposable.”
“That difference is character.”
A voice came from behind us.
“Ethan.”
Vanessa stood ten feet away.
Her eyes were wet now.
Whether the tears were real or strategic, I couldn’t tell.
“Can we talk alone?”
Ethan looked at me.
Then at her.
“Yes.”
Vanessa seemed relieved.
He continued.
“But my mother stays.”
Her relief disappeared.
May you like
“Why?”
“Because apparently the last time I left you alone with her, you used a garden hose.”
