Page 48 of What Comes Around

Then I said, “You should know something else.”

“What?”

“Apple was committed last night.”

Silence.

“What do you mean, committed?” he asked.

“I mean the police were called,” I said. “We were at a café and she completely lost control. She was screaming, threatening people, knocking things over. The officers decided she needed to be taken in for evaluation, so they placed her on a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold.”

“Jesus Christ…” he murmured.

“I stayed until they came,” I said. “She was still yelling when they put her in the car.”

Silence stretched.

“I thought you should know,” I added calmly.

He sounded shaken now. “She… she did all that?”

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“I… I didn’t think her mental state was that bad,” he muttered.

“It was,” I replied. Silence again.

“I have to go,” I said. “Thank you for packing everything.”

When I ended the call, relief finally settled into my body. My mother’s things were safe.

Only then did I let myself think about the rest.

Over the years, I learned how to hurt my father without touching him. You didn’t attack him directly. That only made him defensive. You went after the things he cared about most. His pride. His reputation. His sense of control.

Four years ago, Nick had delivered the first real blow to my father’s business. His influence in Riverton was real, and when Apple turned him into an enemy, the family company suffered collateral damage. Contracts disappeared. Clients hesitated. Partnerships cooled.

The business survived. Barely.

After that, I helped his biggest competitor. I invested. I leaked information. I made sure their launches always came a few weeks before his. His bids failed by margins too small to contest. Deals collapsed for reasons that looked like coincidence.

I didn’t destroy the company outright.

I let it erode.

A thriving operation shrank to maybe a third of what it once was. Layoffs came in waves. Budgets tightened. Corners were cut. Entire departments disappeared.

I watched his empire slip quietly through his fingers.

And every time my father talked about rebuilding, about loyalty, about family, I thought about how easily he had replaced my mother.

I picked up my coffee and took a slow sip, standing in the quiet of my apartment while the city hummed faintly beyond the windows. The boxes were safe now, and Apple was contained, at least for the moment.

But the stillness didn’t feel peaceful. It felt like the pause between storms.

Somewhere in that U-Haul were pieces of a woman I barely remembered. The scent of her perfume lingering in old coats. Her handwriting tucked into photo albums. The quiet traces of a life she had lived before everything fell apart.