Chapter 15 - THE INTERVIEW
Wade finally sat down with an independent investigator.
His attorney was present, and I was not.
I learned later only what he chose to tell me.
He admitted accepting expensive hospitality from a prospective vendor.
He admitted failing to report a financial relationship.
He denied knowingly submitting forged documents or manipulating the final bid outcome.
He said Fallon had promised that her brother's company was legitimate.
The investigators checked his statements against records rather than taking his word for it.
That was the fairest thing anyone could have done.
Wade hated it.
He appeared at Ruth's house on a rainy afternoon, staring at the wet steps as though unsure whether he still had the right to knock.
She called me before opening the door.
I agreed to speak with him on the porch.
He was holding an old envelope.
Inside were letters I had written to him at college.
I recognized the uneven handwriting from nights when my fingers were swollen after work.
“Why do you have these?” I asked.
He began crying.
“I kept them because I missed you.”
“Lena says you used them to copy my signature.”
He looked horrified.
“I gave Fallon a box when she was organizing our papers. I didn't know what Travis was doing.”
I wanted to believe him.
This time wanting was not enough.
“Tell your lawyer,” I said.
“Tell the investigators. Don't tell me a story you think will make me forgive you.”
Wade sat on the bottom step.
“I thought success meant nobody could ever look down on us again.”
“Who taught you I was someone to look down on?”
He flinched.
“I don't know.”
“I can tell you when I first heard it from you.”
I described the toilet and his words in the kitchen.
He wept openly.
“I was ashamed of being poor.”
“We were poor, Wade. We were never shameful.”
He nodded, but I could see that he had only begun to understand.
Then he made a confession I hadn't anticipated.
“Fallon said if I got promoted, we could pay back everything we took from you.”
“Everything?”
He covered his face.
“There is another account, Mom.”
I felt the porch move beneath me.
May you like
“And your name is on it.”
