Brent frowned. “What is he talking about?”
For the first time all morning, my father looked afraid of his son.
Thomas reached into his coat and removed a sealed envelope. He placed it on the coffee table beside Evelyn’s documents.
“Your father didn’t lose the business because of me,” he said. “He lost it because he borrowed against contracts that didn’t exist. When the accounts collapsed, he needed someone to blame. I was convenient.”
“That’s a lie,” Brent said, but his voice had weakened.
Evelyn removed several photocopied bank statements from her folder. “It is not. Mr. Reed came forward last year after locating original files from the company’s former storage unit. Those files match records discovered among Celia Whitaker’s personal papers.”
At the mention of my grandmother, my mother shut her eyes.
Grandma Celia had been the only person in that family who loved without making people pay for it. She had taught me how to balance a checkbook when I was thirteen, how to make soup stretch through a hard week, and how to smile politely while refusing to be stepped on.
