Chapter 5 - Ruth’s Buried Truth
Z
The rain began falling in heavy, gray sheets on Wednesday morning, washing against the windows of our small apartment above the bakery. The air smelled of damp pavement and cinnamon. Nolan sat at the kitchen table, meticulously painting a wooden solar system model we had picked up from the dollar store three weeks ago. His tiny brush carefully applied bright yellow paint to the cardboard sphere representing the sun.
"Mom, is Jupiter bigger than the townhouse?" Nolan asked without looking up from his work.
I paused from folding his laundry—his clean shirts, his navy-blue moon shirt sitting right at the top of the pile. "Jupiter is bigger than the whole city of Knoxville, baby. It’s bigger than a million townhouses."
"Good," Nolan muttered under his breath, dabbing blue paint onto Earth. "I hope Jupiter falls on Grant’s car."
"Nolan," I gently admonished, though a small, dark part of my heart couldn't help but agree. "We don't wish bad things on people."
"He made you cry," Nolan said simply, holding up his tiny Earth to inspect it against the window light. "When people make you cry, they shouldn't get to have a nice car."
Before I could answer, the front door unlocked, and my mother walked in, carrying a dripping rain umbrella and a thick brown paper bag. She looked pale, her skin almost translucent against the damp collar of her coat, but her mouth was set in a tight, unyielding line.
"Where were you?" I asked, setting down the laundry and stepping toward her. "Mom, you were supposed to stay in bed. Your blood pressure was high yesterday."
"My blood pressure is fine," Ruth said, setting the bag on the counter. She pulled off her wet coat, revealing a tailored dark blue dress I hadn't seen her wear in fifteen years—the dress she wore to my father’s funeral. "I had errands to run."
"What errands?"
Ruth turned to me, ensuring Nolan was deeply immersed in painting Saturn’s rings before she pulled a fresh stack of legal documents from the paper bag.
"I went to see an old friend," Ruth whispered. "Arthur’s old assistant from the company. The one Grant fired two weeks after your father died."
My heart did a sudden, violent flip in my chest. "Sarah Lin?"
"Sarah Lin," Ruth nodded. "She’s been working as a bookkeeper for a medical supply firm in Maryville for eight years. She stayed quiet because she was scared of the Bellamys, just like Arthur was. But when I showed up at her front door this morning and told her that Grant Bellamy was using his stolen money to take Arthur’s grandson away..." Ruth’s eyes flashed with a fiery, triumphant brilliance. "...Sarah gave me the digital back-up drives."
I stared at the black flash drive sitting on top of the paper stack. "Digital back-ups?"
"Arthur wasn't stupid, Audrey," Ruth said, leaning against the counter, her voice dropping into a fierce, breathless rhythm. "He knew papers could burn. He knew ledger books could disappear in a house fire or a burglary. Before he walked out of Bellamy Logistics for the last time, he had Sarah duplicate the entire financial server onto an encrypted flash drive. He hid it in her safety deposit box in Maryville."
"Mom..." I took the small piece of plastic into my hand. It felt impossibly light, yet heavy enough to drop a mountain on Grant’s head. "Does Marcus have this?"
"I just came from his office," Ruth said, a cold, ruthless smile touching her thin lips. "Marcus smiled for the first time since I met him. He said this flash drive contains the direct electronic signatures for every illegal wire transfer Grant Bellamy signed between 2018 and 2022. The exact accounts in the Cayman Islands. The phantom payroll checks."
I looked at the small piece of black plastic, then at my mother. "Why didn't Dad use this back then? Why did he let them scare him?"
Ruth’s smile faded, and a shadow of deep, enduring grief crossed her face. She reached out, taking my cheeks in her worn, warm hands.
"Because back then, Audrey... Grant was married to you. Arthur was afraid that if he destroyed the Bellamy family name, Grant would drag you down with him. He was afraid you would be ruined as an accomplice because your name was on their family trust accounts. Arthur chose to die in silence rather than risk your future."
Tears pricked behind my eyelids. All those years, I had thought my father was a timid man who died from the slow heartbreak of losing his life's work. I never knew he had died holding a live grenade in his hands, refusing to pull the pin because I was standing too close to the explosion.
"And now?" I asked, my voice trembling.
"Now," Ruth whispered, kissing my forehead softly, "you're divorced. You're free. And you're fighting for his grandson. Your father’s grenade is finally going to go off."
The wall clock ticked loudly in the quiet room. 2:00 PM Wednesday.
In twenty-four hours, Grant would be pulling up to Nolan’s school in his shiny, lease-paid Mercedes, expecting to take my son away for four days. He expected to walk into Marcus Vance’s office tomorrow morning for a simple, routine child support deposition, throw around his inflated wealth, and humiliate me one last time before sealing my defeat.
I squeezed the flash drive tightly in my palm until the plastic dug into my skin.
"Nolan," I called out, turning toward the kitchen table with a voice that was no longer trembling.
May you like
"Yeah, Mom?"
"Finish painting Saturn, sweetie," I said, looking out the window as the rain lashed against the glass. "Tomorrow, we're going to show your father what happens when you try to tear down a home built on love."
