Thomas looked up at his son. Is George all right? He asked. Ben considered this. He says so, he said, but he's a little mad.
Tell George I apologize, Thomas said. Ben nodded seriously and disappeared. The argumentation upstairs continued. Thomas looked at Clare. Clare looked at Thomas.
They were both smiling. Not the careful, controlled, abbreviated smiles of people managing themselves in a difficult situation. Real ones, wide and unguarded. The kind of smiles that happen when the weight lifts and the ordinary, ridiculous, beautiful fact of a family doing its family things fills the room. George is a little mad, Thomas said.
Understandably, Clare said upstairs, the arguing had shifted into the sound of Lily playing the music box, which was apparently her answer to all disputes, and Noah's voice had taken on a different quality. And Emily said something that made both younger children laugh. The house breathed. Thomas looked at Clare. Monday, he said.
Monday, she agreed. And they both knew without saying it because they had both become fluent in the language of what wasn't said. That Monday was going to be the beginning of something rather than the end. And that the something it was beginning was the life they were both slowly and carefully and with full understanding of what it meant. Choosing Daryl's news on Monday was better than significant.
Whitmore had through Kettleworth sent a formal communication to Daryls office over the weekend. The tone Darrow said with the neutral precision of a lawyer, savoring something he would not allow himself to savor aloud, was consiliatory. Whitmore's bank was prepared to extend the Walker mortgage at a revised interest rate. The inspection clause going forward would require 60 days notice rather than 30. The acceleration clause would require a formal missed payment, not merely the bank's discretionary assessment of viability.
Thomas sat in Darrow's office in Milbrook and read the revised terms twice. Then he looked at Darrow. Why, he said. Why did he back down? Darrow set his spectacles on his desk.
Because the county board meeting made three things very clear to Richard Whitmore. First, that the community is paying attention to his practices. Second, that Holtz report eliminated any defensible basis for proceeding against your property. Third, he paused. The Pratt brothers have a note at Whitmore's bank that comes due in April.
The Widow Jansen has one that comes due in June. If Whitmore had tried to proceed against you, and the community had been watching, those families would have had very strong grounds to challenge their own notes on the same bad faith argument. He met Thomas's eyes. Whitmore decided that one parcel of water access land is not worth the exposure. Thomas was quiet.