stop-"Are you saying Bob took the money? That he stole from the charity?" Her voice was firm. "He borrowed the money, Paul." "You're kidding, right?" Greta took her hands away from mine. "You don't understand." "Then explain it to me."
"He'll go to jail," she said. "My husband. Madison's father. Bob will go to jail. Do you get that? It will ruin all our lives."
"Bob should have thought of that before he stole from a charity."
"He didn't steal. He borrowed. It's been tough for him at work. Did you know he lost his two biggest accounts?" "No. Why didn't he tell me?" "What was he going to say?" "So he thought the answer was to steal?" "He didn't..." She stopped mid-denial, shook her head. "Its not that simple. We had signed the papers and committed to the pool. We made a mistake. We overextended."
"What about your family money?"
"After Jane died, my parents thought it best to keep everything in trust. I can't touch it." I shook my head. "So he stole?" "Will you stop saying that? Look." She handed me photocopied sheets. "Bob was keeping tabs on every cent he took. He was using six percent interest. He would pay it all back once he got on his feet. It was just a way of tiding us over."
I scanned through the papers, tried to see something that would help them, show me that he hadn't truly done what they said. But there was nothing. There were handwritten notes that could have been put there at any time. My heart sank.
"Did you know about this?" I asked her.
"That's not relevant."
"Like hell it isn't. Did you know?"
"No," she said. "He didn't tell me where the money came from. But listen, do you know how many hours Bob put into JaneCare? He was director. A man in that position should have had a full-time salary. Six figures at least."
"Please tell me you're not going to justify it that way."
"I will justify it any way I can. I love my husband. You know him. Bobs a good man. He borrowed the money and would have returned it before anybody noticed. This type of thing is done all the time. You know that. But because of who you are and this damn rape case, the police stumbled across it. And because of who you are, they will make an example of him. They'll destroy the man I love. And if they destroy him, they destroy me and my family. Do you get that, Paul?"
I did get it. I had seen it done before. She was right. They would put the entire family through the wringer. I tried to push past my anger. I tried to see it Greta's way, tried to accept her excuses.
"I don't know what you want me to do," I said.
"This is my life we're talking about."
I flinched when she said that.
"Save us. Please."
"By lying?"
"It was a loan. He just didn't have time to tell you."
I closed my eyes and shook my head. "He stole from a charity. He stole from your sister's charity." "Not my sister's," she said. "Yours." I let that one go. "I wish I could help, Greta." "You're turning your back on us?" "I'm not turning my back. But I can't lie for you." She just stared at me. The angel was gone. "I would do it for you.
You know that."
I said nothing.
"You've failed everyone in your life," Greta said. "You didn't look out for your sister at that camp. And in the end, when my sister was suffering the most..." She stopped. The room temperature dialed down ten degrees. That sleeping snake in my belly woke up and started to slither.
I met her eye. "Say it. Go ahead, say it."
"JaneCare wasn't about Jane. It was about you. It was about your guilt. My sister was dying. She was in pain. I was there, at her deathbed. And you weren't."
The unending suffering. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months. I was there. I watched it all. Most of it anyway. I watched the woman I adored, my tower of strength, wither away. I watched the light dim from her eyes. I smelled death on her, on the woman who smelled of lilacs when I had made love to her outside on a rainy afternoon. And toward the end, I couldn't take it. I couldn't watch the final light go out. I cracked. The worst moment of my life. I cracked and ran and my Jane died without me. Greta