Chapter 6 - Renee Draws a Line
Aunt Renee did not leave when the conversation ended.
Instead she opened the grocery bags she had brought the night before and began putting food away.
Chicken.
Rice.
Frozen vegetables.
Eggs.
Bread.
Kiara watched from the table, embarrassed.
“You didn’t have to buy all that.”
Renee closed the freezer.
“I bought it before I knew what happened.”
That made the gift hurt more.
Darius was in the bedroom getting ready for work.
The apartment remained tense, but the first explosion had passed.
What remained was heavier.
Renee turned toward Kiara.
“Why Marcus?”
Kiara rubbed her forehead.
“Please don’t.”
“I’m not asking to attack you.”
“That would be new.”
Renee’s mouth tightened.
She and Kiara had never been close.
They were polite at birthdays and holidays, but Kiara always believed Renee saw herself as Darius’s unofficial guardian.
Renee had helped raise him after their mother died when Darius was seventeen.
Sometimes she still spoke to him as if he were that grieving teenager instead of a thirty-three-year-old man.
“You think I don’t like you,” Renee said.
“You don’t.”
“I don’t trust people easily.”
“That sounds nicer.”
Renee accepted the criticism.
“Fair.”
Kiara looked up.
That surprised her.
Renee pulled out a chair.
“But I watched my brother work sixty-hour weeks last winter because your hours got cut.”
Kiara’s expression hardened.
“I worked too.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t make this into Darius carrying me.”
“I’m not.”
Renee pointed to the bills.
“I’m saying I know what this household has cost both of you.”
Kiara looked away.
Renee continued.
“And while both of you were sacrificing, there was a third person benefiting.”
Kiara swallowed.
“I’m fixing it.”
“How?”
“I’ll get Marcus to pay it back.”
Renee studied her.
“What if he cries?”
Kiara stared.
“What?”
“What if he says he has nowhere to go?”
“That doesn’t matter now.”
“What if he reminds you about your father?”
Kiara’s face tightened.
“Stop.”
“What if he says Darius is controlling you?”
“I said stop.”
Renee leaned back.
“That reaction is why I’m asking.”
Kiara stood.
“You don’t know what losing my father did to me.”
Renee’s expression softened unexpectedly.
“No.”
Then she said, “But I know what losing my mother did to Darius.”
Kiara went quiet.
“He was seventeen,” Renee continued. “And after she died, he started acting like needing help was a moral failure.”
Kiara knew that.
Darius hated borrowing money.
Hated owing favors.
Hated uncertainty.
Renee looked toward the bedroom.
“That’s his flaw.”
Kiara frowned.
“You think I don’t know he has flaws?”
“I’m saying this isn’t all about you being bad and him being good.”
That was the first thing Renee had said that loosened something in Kiara’s chest.
“He thinks money equals safety,” Renee said. “When money gets unstable, he gets controlling.”
Kiara looked at the notebook.
“Yes.”
“But when you feel guilty, you get secretive.”
Kiara said nothing.
“That combination will destroy both of you.”
Darius emerged in his charcoal work shirt.
He had heard the last sentence.
He looked at Renee.
“I have to go.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
His honesty silenced both women.
“But if I stay here, I’m going to keep asking questions until I hear an answer that makes me feel better.”
He picked up his keys.
“And there probably isn’t one.”
Kiara stood.
“Darius.”
He stopped.
“I’ll pay the electric bill today.”
“With what?”
“My personal savings.”
“How much do you have?”
Kiara hesitated.
Darius noticed.
Her shoulders fell.
“Two thousand one hundred.”
He stared at her.
Renee slowly closed the refrigerator.
“You have twenty-one hundred dollars?”
“Yes.”
“And we were stretching forty dollars for groceries?”
“It’s emergency savings.”
Darius laughed quietly.
“What emergency were you saving it for?”
“I started it before we combined finances.”
“How long have you had it?”
“Years.”
Darius nodded.
Another account.
Another fact.
Not wrongdoing by itself.
But today every hidden door felt like a threat.
“You should keep personal savings,” he said.
Kiara looked surprised.
“I’m not angry you have it.”
He picked up the shutoff notice.
“I’m angry that you protected your emergency fund while using our shared emergency money to rescue Marcus.”
Kiara stared at him.
That distinction mattered.
Darius placed the notice back down.
“You don’t have to empty your savings.”
“I want to.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because fixing this isn’t you becoming financially dependent on me.”
Renee nodded faintly.
Darius continued.
“Pay the electric bill from the money you kept. Then we’re going to restructure everything until I know what’s real.”
Kiara’s eyes filled.
“You’re separating our finances.”
“Yes.”
The answer came instantly.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you leaving?”
Darius looked at her.
He had not decided.
That terrified Kiara more than a threat would have.
“I’m going to work.”
He opened the door.
Then stopped.
“One more thing.”
Kiara waited.
“Do not delete one message from Marcus.”
Her expression changed.
“Why?”
“Because we may need proof that he lied about that lease.”
Darius looked at the phone in her hand.
“And because right now, your messages know more about your relationship with him than I do.”
He left.
Kiara stared at the closed door.
Renee remained silent.
Then Kiara’s phone rang.
Marcus.
She declined the call.
Immediately, a text arrived.
You need to control your man before he causes problems for both of us.
Kiara read it twice.
Renee read her face.
“What did he say?”
Kiara turned the screen toward her.
Renee’s eyes narrowed.
“Both of you?”
Kiara’s stomach dropped.
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He doesn’t know about the other paperwork, does he?
