She stopped three paces in when she realized the whole lobby had gone still.
‘Derek?’ she said.
He turned too fast.
‘Babe, not now.’
Hannah looked at the paper on the counter, then at Elena, then at me.
‘What’s going on?’
My mother moved first, smile snapping into place.
‘Nothing, sweetheart.
Just some financial confusion.’
Derek reached for Hannah’s elbow.
‘It’s fine.
Nathan is overreacting.’
I hadn’t planned to say anything to her.
I truly hadn’t.
But Derek chose that exact second to mutter, loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘We’re not leaving four grand trapped in an account for a kid’s arm while the wedding is already paid for.’
Hannah froze.
‘A kid’s arm?’
Nobody answered.
She looked at me.
I looked back.
Sometimes the truth doesn’t need help.
It just needs room.
Her expression changed first to confusion, then horror.
‘Whose child are you talking about?’
Derek exhaled through his nose.
‘My niece.
It’s not what it sounds like.’
‘It sounds,’ Hannah said slowly, ‘like you came to a bank to take money from a six-year-old’s surgery fund because you wanted a tuxedo.’
My mother stepped in with that wounded-matriarch tone I had known my whole life.
‘Hannah, families handle things differently behind closed doors.’
Hannah looked around the bank lobby.
‘This doesn’t look very closed.’
Derek’s face darkened.
