Page 92 of The Banker

CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE

Isaac

I takethe familiar turn down West Sycamore Avenue, and slow down as I get to number three four nine, the place I grew up.

I know she lives here. It was my grandmother’s house and she left everything to my mom. The curtains are drawn, the very same ones my grandmother had fitted twenty years ago. The grass has been cut on the lawn at least, but gone are the flowers that my grandmother had tended so lovingly to. I park, step out of the truck and spend a minute stretching. That was one hell of a drive and I don’t want to be away from Starling Key longer than I have to be. But I have questions that need answering if I’m going to be able to move forward with my life, with a normal relationship, and only one person can help me.

I lock the truck and walk up the short drive to the front door. I look over the age-old Ford parked up. It’s covered in rust and probably barely working but the interior is spotless. I knock at the door and wait, but no one answers. I try the handle but, unsurprisingly, it’s locked. I walk around the side of the house where I remember there was a loose brick where Grandma used to keep a key. Although, that was a long time ago and I used to give her hell about it. I find the brick and pull it out, almost falling over when I see a key lying there. I pick it out and walk back around the front. I half expect the key to not work—it might well have been there since Grandma died. But it unlocks the door easily.

I step inside and immediately smell cleaning fluid. It’s so strong it feels as though my nostrils are burning. I step through the porch and look right into what used to be a laundry room, and there I see the culprits. Lots of them. What looks to be hundreds of bottles of bleach, floor cleaner, woodwork polish, floor wax, and a lifetime’s supply of cloths, sponges and rags. I head on past into the living room. It’s too dark to see much, so I go to pull back the curtains when I hear a groan behind me. I quickly draw back the curtains, then turn to see a lone couch at the back of the room, and on it, my mother, covered in a blanket I recognize well.

“Isaac?” Her voice is croaky with sleep.

I check my wristwatch. “Mom, it’s two o’clock in the afternoon.

“I know, honey. Thanks for waking me. I can happily survive on only two hours sleep.” I smile inwardly. That’s clearly where I get my sarcasm from.

“Why two hours?” She better not still be partying. She’s nearly in her sixties for heaven’s sake.

“I’ve been at work.”

I try and fail to hide the surprise in my tone. “Work? Doing what?”

She drops her feet to the floor and looks up at me, wearily. “I’m a cleaner, Isaac. I clean offices, peoples’ houses, whatever I can.” She sighs and rubs at her face.

“What about the money? Where did it go?”

She stops rubbing her face and closes her eyes as if hoping when she opens them, I might have gone. I persist. “I know you got the money, Mom. What did you do with it?” I look around the sparsely decorated house. Pretty much all of Grandma’s beloved furniture has gone and all I can see is a small dining table, one wooden chair and the sofa on which my mother is sitting. “Why are you living like a pauper when you’ve just been given fifty grand?”

She sighs heavily and drags open her eyes. “That money was never mine,” she says, slowly, as though she knows I can’t feel any more exasperated with her.

“What do you mean?” I shove my hands into my pockets so she can’t see me clenching them.

“It was a debt I owed to someone from way back.”

“A debt? To who?”

“No one important,” she sighs again. “Anymore.”

“What do you mean by that? Tell me the truth, Mom.”

She stands and walks into the kitchen where she flicks on a small kettle on the same counter I remember from my childhood days. There’s barely anything else here though, no pots and pans that I can see. Nothing on the drainer.

“I’m an addict, Isaac,” she says, without looking at me, even when I suck in a sharp breath.

I force myself to swallow. “To what?”

“It started six years ago. I was addicted to painkillers. I’m clean now.”

“Why were you taking painkillers?”

“To manage the pain I had when I broke my leg.”

I shake my head in surprise. “When did you break your leg?”

“Six years ago,” she says, finally looking at me. The only word missing from her tone is ‘duh’. “I was drinking pretty heavily. I fell down the stairs. The break didn’t heal for a long time so I had all kinds of pain from over-compensating and simply trying to get around.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

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