“I’m sure it is.”
There was another pause, followed by the sound of moving paper. “Would you be willing to speak with him directly?”
“He knows my number.”
My phone rang ten minutes later.
I watched it vibrate beside a bowl of lemons on the kitchen island before answering.
“Mom, what are you doing?” Brandon demanded.
“I’m making tea.”
“You know what I mean. The landlord needs the deposit by Friday. If I lose this lease, months of work disappear.”
I carried the phone toward the bay window. Farther down the hill, a cable car bell sounded faintly. A woman wearing a red raincoat walked a terrier along the pavement.
Life continued with complete indifference.
“You structured a business deal around money you do not currently have,” I said. “That is not my emergency.”
Silence followed.
Then Brandon laughed without amusement. “You’ve changed.”
“No,” I said. “I’ve stopped absorbing the cost of you not changing.”
He disconnected the call.
I remained at the window for a long while, expecting the guilt to overwhelm me.
It came. It pressed tightly beneath my ribs. It reminded me of Brandon at six with a fever, at thirteen after his first broken heart, and at twenty-three calling me from a parking garage because his business partner had disappeared with half the company’s operating funds.
My body remembered how to save him.
But Richard’s letter remained open on the desk behind me.
He will resent you first.
A month later, the annual Vance Foundation gala took place in a hotel ballroom near Nob Hill, filled with towering windows, white orchids, and donors capable of discussing philanthropy while discreetly checking share prices beneath the table.
Richard and I had helped establish the foundation’s youth mentorship program. Entering the room without him still felt like arriving with half of myself missing.
I wore a navy gown and the pearl earrings he had given me for our twenty-fifth anniversary. While speaking with two longtime colleagues near the silent-auction display, I noticed Brandon on the opposite side of the ballroom.
He looked polished but tense. Jessica stood beside him in a black dress, smiling with too much brightness. Together, they had cornered David Vance, Richard’s longtime friend and one of the Bay Area’s most respected commercial developers.
Brandon spoke with one hand moving through the air while the other held a glass he had barely touched. Jessica nodded repeatedly, as though posture alone could charm David’s wife into supporting them.
I recognized the angle of Brandon’s shoulders.
Too much desperation. Too little preparation.
David listened courteously at first. Then his expression shifted into the restrained unease of a man searching for an elegant way out. He asked a question. Brandon responded too fast. David followed with another. Brandon’s smile became strained.
Jessica interrupted with a remark about “family legacy.” David’s wife turned toward the auction display as if a watercolor of Half Moon Bay had suddenly become fascinating.
Minutes later, David excused himself.
Brandon noticed me watching.
He crossed the ballroom with Jessica following, restraining his anger only because several people who knew our family were nearby.
“Did you say something to David?” he asked quietly.
“No.”
“He shut me down like he already had a story in his head.”
“Maybe he had questions.”
Jessica spoke softly, but there was steel underneath. “Linda, everyone knows you and Richard had influence in this room. One word from you could have opened that door.”
I studied my daughter-in-law. She wore concern beautifully, like an accessory chosen to match whatever she desired.
“I did not close the door,” I said. “And I will not pretend Brandon is ready for a door he cannot open on his own.”
Color climbed into Brandon’s face. “You want me to fail.”