She opened the first folder. The firm’s lease was current. There were no defaults that had anything to do with Camille. My interest in the firm did not make me a manager of client matters, and a personal insult was not a professional disciplinary finding. Geraldine laid those boundaries down before I could confuse ownership with permission.
“The building will be managed as usual,” I said. “Her compensation stays as approved.”
“Good. Then we can discuss disclosure without inventing a business grievance.”
She opened the second folder: the family loan. There were terms, signatures, and an agreed repayment schedule I had stopped mentioning when Theo complained about expenses. They were behind. The amount was not trivial, but the deeper injury was that I had been treated as both a lender and someone too unsophisticated to be allowed near important guests.
“This needs its own conversation,” Geraldine said.
“With Theo too.”
“Especially with Theo.”
He came that evening with my clean casserole dish. A paper napkin had been folded beneath the lid. I set it on the counter and asked him to sit.
“Camille was overwhelmed,” he began.
“I haven’t asked you why she said it.”
He looked down. “I should have handled it better.”
“What did handling it mean to you? Getting me out quietly?”
“No, Mom.”
“That’s what happened.”
The kitchen clock ticked through his silence. I had bought it when he was nine, and he had once believed the small painted bird at its center moved at midnight. It was difficult to look at a grown man and remember the child without letting the child excuse him.
“Did you know she thought I was an embarrassment?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s made comments.”
“And?”
“I told her you were harmless.”
I leaned back. Harmless. Not kind, not welcome, not his mother who had been invited to a celebration. Something to be managed because it posed no threat.
“You thought that defended me.”
His face changed. “I hear it now.”
I told him about Lakeshore Glen. He knew I had property investments, but not the extent. Then I told him about the 46 percent interest. He stared at the table, tracing the edge of an old mark in the wood.
“Does Camille know?”
“Not yet. Geraldine is arranging an appropriate meeting with the firm’s leadership. I will tell Camille myself before she hears it in a business setting.”
“You’re going to humiliate her.”
“I’m going to stop concealing facts so you can both keep pretending I’m someone else.”
He began to protest, then pressed his palms together.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You’ve been apologizing for what you meant for fifteen minutes. I need you to think about what you did.”
