CHAPTER 3: THE DRIVE IN THE BLUE RIBBON
We took June into a private sitting room behind the ballroom. My parents followed. Denise brought water and asked whether we wanted security to keep anyone else out. “Yes,” I said. Grant appeared at the doorway seconds later, Camille and Lenora close behind him. “This is a family matter,” he announced. “Exactly,” my mother answered. “So stop performing for the crowd.” Denise closed the door before he could push inside. June sat on a velvet couch, swinging her feet above the carpet. I crouched in front of her. “Tell me only what you feel comfortable telling me.” She explained that Grant had borrowed her school laptop because his office machine was being repaired. He had saved documents in a folder named PLANETS, thinking she would never notice. She noticed because her presentation about Saturn suddenly contained files with unfamiliar names. “I didn’t open the weird ones at first,” she said. “But he was angry when I asked why my folder was full.” A week later he took the laptop away. June had already copied the folder to the drive her teacher gave her. “I was scared he would say I was lying,” she admitted. “So I asked Grandpa how to save another copy.” My father nodded. He had helped her preserve the files without examining private financial information. “I thought she was worried about losing homework,” he said. “When she explained more, I told her she needed to tell you. We were going to do that tomorrow.” June looked miserable. “Then Dad came with the boy.” I pulled her close. “You didn’t cause any of this. You didn’t have to fix it.” She cried at last, not loudly, but with the exhausted relief of a child who had been holding a secret too long.
