Truths I Never Told You (ARC)
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glass, and he shrugs and continues around the table to Hunter.
“Dad gave you the business because you’re the only one of us
who worked there. You built that company almost as much as
he did over the past few decades.”
“Walsh Homes is worth a lot of money, and it’s not fair that I
should get that and a cut of the house,” Ruth says stiffly.
“Well, it’s also not fair that we should have to watch you play
the martyr now then listen to you complain about how put out
you are for the next forty years,” Jeremy says abruptly. I’ve been
aware all night that there’s a storm brewing among my siblings.
I can see it in their stiff language…hear it in the way they are
raising their voices. They’re all looking for a reason to fight to
distract us all from the empty space at the head of the table. I
don’t want to watch them quarrel, but if this is the only way to
break the silence, I’ll sit back and let them go for it. “Whatever
we’re doing with this house, we’re deciding it together.”
“Whatever we’re doing with it?” Tim interjects, surprised.
“Jez, there’s only one thing to do with it. We have to sell it.”
“We could keep it and rent it out,” Jeremy says, frowning.
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Kelly Rimmer
“And if we do that, how exactly are we going to pay for Dad’s
health care?”
There’s a significant cost for Dad’s care at this nursing home—
it’s a beautifully plush facility, but it comes with a mind-bog-
gling fee to match, and his insurance is going to cover less than
half of it. The first bills will come due early next year…maybe
even sooner if Dad passes in the meantime. Dad was reasonably
well-off, but when he retired he handed ownership of the busi-
ness over to Ruth, and in the five years since, his savings seem
to have evaporated. It was quite a shock when Dad signed his
power of attorney over to Tim earlier this year and we realized
just how little he had left. We’re still not entirely sure where
all of his money went. It’s something Tim’s “going to look into
when he gets some time,” but I don’t really blame him for put-
ting that task off—it’s a pointless endeavor. Wherever Dad put
that money, it’s not coming back.
“We’ll all chip in for the fees.” Jeremy shrugs. “Between the
four of us, I’m sure we’ll find a way to come up with the cash
without selling this place.”
Hunter and I exchange a glance. I guess we could come
up with some money if we had to, but we’d probably have to
remortgage our place to do it. He’s a junior partner at a law
firm over in Seattle and he makes a good salary, but six years of
expensive fertility treatments and now six months without my
income have left us without any savings.
“I just don’t think Dad would want us to do that,” Tim says.
“But you really think Dad would want us to sell the house
he built with his own two hands?” Jeremy snaps.
“He built hundreds of houses over his lifetime,” Tim snaps
back.
“Oh, come on, Jeremy,” Ruth sighs. “You know this one is
different. This one is ours.”
“So you’d have us hold on to it, but then install complete
strangers in it?” Tim snorts. “Makes perfect sense.”
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“Beth? What do you think?” Jeremy asks, and all eyes around
the table turn to me. Ruth and I have arranged babysitters for
our respective children—Noah is with Chiara again; Ruth’s
kids are with her au pair. Alicia is supposedly coming, but Tim
says she’s running late, and I think we all know that means she
didn’t want to come but didn’t have the guts to admit that to
him. But Ellis sits beside Ruth, and Hunter sits to my left. It’s
Hunter my gaze goes searching for, because I don’t have the en-
ergy to buy into this debate, and I’m hoping if I deflect the at-
tention to him, I won’t have to.
“Are there legal considerations?” I ask him, my voice small.
“I haven’t seen Patrick’s will,” Hunter says. “But generally,
after he passes, the house would go to all four of you unless he’s
specified otherwise. And in the meantime, Tim has power of
attorney, so it’s up to him what happens to the house.”
“I wouldn’t do anything the others didn’t agree to.” Tim says,
aghast at the suggestion. Hunter shrugs.
“I know that. I think we all know that, Tim. But the law is
also clear on this—the final say is yours.”
“Beth, I wasn’t asking you to ask your husband for his pro-
fessional legal opinion,” Jeremy interjects impatiently. “I was
asking you what you think.”
“Jez?” Hunter says, and he lazily shifts his gaze from me to
my brother. Jeremy raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re being a
dick tonight.”
Jeremy opens his mouth to argue, but then closes it again
abruptly.
“Okay. Maybe I am.” There’s a burst of quiet laughter from
around the table before Jeremy sighs and admits, “I’ll be honest. I
just cannot stand the thought of losing our last ties to this place.”
“We’re not losing each other. We’re not even losing Dad. It’s
just a house…simply an object. What’s actually precious to you
is the bonds the house represents, not the house itself,” I say au-
tomatically.
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Kelly Rimmer
“Well-done, Jeremy. You’ve knocked Beth back into thera-
pist mode,” Ruth sighs, but then she flashes me a wink. I offer
her a wan smile, then divert my gaze back to my plate. If only
there really was a therapist mode. I’d love it if I could press a but-ton and revert back to the competent professional I used to be.
“You still haven’t told us what you want to do with the house,
Beth,” Tim murmurs. “What do you think?”
I think that I’m over this dinner and over this conversation,
but I have been since we arrived, and Noah isn’t even here so
I don’t have an excuse to leave early. My feelings are muted on
all of this—which is confusing, because everyone else is froth-
ing at the mouth about what we should do next. Tim obviously
wants to sell, Jeremy and Ruth obviously don’t, Hunter and Ellis
will keep their opinions to themselves because although they
are definitely part of the family, it’s really up to the four of us.
I start to think it all through—what it will look like to pre-
pare the house for sale or lease, the packing and the cleaning and
freshening up the paint and fixing the garden. It’s a big job. No,
it’s a huge job, and an awful one . It’s a job that no one has time for, although one of us could, theoretically, make time. And one
of us is most definitely stuck in an odd rut at the moment, s
o…
“We’ll need to get the house ready either way,” I say slowly. I
skip my gaze around the table, but this time avoid my husband’s
eyes. “We can get help in for the painting and the gardening,
but sorting through Dad’s things is going to be the hardest part.
Maybe I should take that on, since you’re all so busy.”
“Wait—aren’t you going back to work soon?” Jeremy asks .
I knew that lie was going to come back to bite me.
I clear my throat and say noncommittally, “Soon. But not
quite yet.”
“You can’t do the whole house, Beth. That’s not fair.” Tim
frowns.
“I…” I glance quickly around my siblings, then back to my
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plate as I shrug. “I’m the only one of us who can make time.
And I kind of want to do this. For Dad.”
“You’d have to let us all help around work,” Ruth says. I
glance up at her, and find she’s staring at me. I don’t like it. She’s
too sharp and it feels like she’s looking through me. I pick up
my fork and begin to push the food around on my plate, just so
I can avoid her gaze. “And of course, when you need contrac-
tors, I can arrange them.”
“Good,” I say, still looking down.
“Are you sure, Beth?” Tim asks, very gently. I nod firmly
then force a smile before I raise my gaze to look at him.
“Noah is five months old, guys. I’m ready for a project.”
Now everyone is looking at me. I feel my cheeks heating.
“It’s just…you’re sure you’re up to this, Beth?” Jeremy says
eventually. The words drip with awkwardness, and I scowl at
him.
“What? Of course I am.” Oh God, please let me do this. I just
want to feel useful again. “I had a baby, Jez. I’m not the one with the terminal diagnosis here.”
“Hunter?” my sister prompts carefully, and I gape at her.
“Seriously, Ruth? Did I time warp back to the 1950s? Did
you seriously just ask my husband to give me permission to do
something?”
“Of course she didn’t,” Hunter sighs. “Let’s talk about this
later.”
“No, Hunter,” I say flatly. “Let’s talk about it now.”
“Talk about it all you want, guys, but I’m too jet-lagged to
watch you two battle it out tonight, so can you do it at home?”
Jeremy interjects.
“Like you can talk,” Tim snorts. “You’re the one who’s been
picking fights all night.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ruth groans, rubbing her eyes wearily. “If this
is how family dinners are going to be without Dad, can we just
forget about the tradition altogether?”
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The reminder of that empty chair is the slap in the face we
all needed, and the squabbling stops immediately.
“Sorry,” I whisper, after a while. Around the table there are
echoes of me, too, except from Ellis. I’m pretty sure he’s actually reading, because although he’s still sitting with us, he’s been silently staring at his lap for a long while now and every now and
again I hear the faint rustle of pages. It wouldn’t be the first time
he’s mentally checked out of a family function to disappear into a
book, and I guess that’s what Ruth gets for marrying a librarian.
“So the plan is that we clear out the house, tidy things up…
then decide what to do with the property once it’s all done?”
Jeremy asks quietly.
“In the meantime, we can all think about whether or not
we can chip in to cover Dad’s health care bills,” Tim suggests.
“Andrew’s confirmation service is at St Louise’s next week-
end,” Ruth says suddenly, speaking about her eldest son. “Let’s
have one last family lunch here after Mass.”
“We can bring Dad back for that, if he’s ready for a day leave
by then,” Jeremy says, and that reminds me…
“Ruth, you left me off the roster this week. When do you
want me to go visit Dad?”
My sister stiffens again, then offers me a thin smile.
“I thought you might like a little break before you dive right
into all that.”
“What? Why?” I ask blankly. It was deliberate? That makes no
sense at all. If the doctors are right, we don’t have much time
left with Dad. And even if they’re wrong, I’ve seen how fast
he’s declining. God only knows what his condition will be in
two weeks . Besides, Dad and I are incredibly close. He’s going
to notice if I don’t go in to see him.
“We should get going,” Hunter says quietly as he rises. “We
said we’d pick Noah up from Mom’s by nine.”
“I want to go see Dad,” I say stubbornly. No one says any-
thing, and I sigh impatiently. “Look, I’m going in with or with-
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out your approval and I know you’re all busy so you may as well
swap.”
“Go on Tuesday in Alicia’s place,” Tim says eventually. I nod
at him curtly, and then rise beside my husband. I glance at my
sister again, and find she’s staring at her wineglass.
“I’ll start straightaway on the house, but I’ll pack up this room
last,” I say with a frown. “In case he comes home for lunch with
us next week, we should try to keep things nice and normal
for him.”
“It’s settled, then,” Ruth sighs, resigned. “You start the pro-
cess, but promise me you’ll call us for help when you need it.”
“Fine.”
I glance at Hunter, and I’m wholly unsurprised to see him
staring into space, his face set in a grim mask.
“What are you thinking, Beth?”
We’re on our way home. Hunter is driving, his face set in a
stony mask as he stares ahead at the road. It’s raining heavily, and
now isn’t the time for an argument because he needs to concen-
trate on driving. I keep my tone mild as I reply.
“It’s just that someone has to get the house ready, that’s all.
The others are all so busy—”
“And so are you.”
“Not really,” I say. “Not compared to them.” I pause, then
can’t help but frown as I ask, “And what was all of that about,
anyway? Since when does everyone treat me like I have leprosy?”
Hunter sighs heavily, then runs one hand through his hair.
His hairline has just started to recede, something he’s philosophi-
cal about. When we first noticed the hair loss eighteen months
ago, we were in a very different place. I remember tentatively
raising the issue as we were getting dressed in the bathroom one
morning, and, shirtless, he’d flexed his muscles and told me not
to worry, he’d still be just as irresistible once he was bald as a
bowling ball. When I laughed, he chased me into the bedroom,
his cheeks still covered in shaving cream, cor
nering me near the
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bed and kissing me playfully. I washed my face and reapplied
my makeup but I smelled like his shaving cream all day, and
between appointments with my clients, I’d pause to enjoy the
scent and think about him.
“Are you feeling any better?” he asks me hesitantly.
“Better than what?” I scowl.
“Beth. You haven’t been yourself for months, and whenever
we ask if you’re okay, you change the subject.”
“We?” I repeat, eyebrows drawing down. “Who is this ‘we’?”
“Me and Ruth. And the boys. Everyone can see it. Is it your
dad?”
“Is what my dad? I just had a baby, Hunter. I’m allowed to
be tired.”
Hunter doesn’t reply. Instead, he drives in silence for a while.
Part of me wants to argue more, but I’m not sure I want to delve
into this too deeply. I’m not myself, but I’m definitely not ready to explain to him where my mind is at. When we’re a few blocks
from home, he speaks again, so suddenly that I startle.
“I assume, since you’re so keen to sort out your dad’s house,
you really think a project is going to help?”
“There’s nothing to help,” I sigh impatiently. “I’m fine. But
I do want to do this for Dad and it’s not a big deal. It needs to
be done, and if someone doesn’t take it on, the task will linger
for months.”
“I’ve been thinking that maybe you should see someone.”
“See who?”
“See a psychologist, Beth,” he says. I gape at him.
“Do you want to ruin my career?” I ask him incredulously.
“Do you?” he fires back.
“If the directors knew I was in therapy, I won’t have a job to
go back to.”
“Come on, Beth. That’s hardly—”
“That’s the reality of it, Hunter!”
He pauses, and I think he’s going to try to debate with me
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about whether or not there’s a stigma around mental health pro-
fessionals seeking mental health treatment. I’m getting ready to
point out to him that he’s a lawyer, and what would he know,
but he draws in a sharp breath, then asks very quietly,
“So if your career wasn’t a factor, you would talk to some-