I stared at him for a long moment.
Last night, he had leaned back in his chair, smiling as Lucas tried not to cry, and said, “The world is easier when kids learn where they rank.”
So I answered him with his own lesson.
“No, Brent. I want you to learn where you rank when nobody is paying your way.”
His face hardened. “You think you’re better than me?”
“No. I think I stopped asking you to be better, and that made me free.”
My father slammed his hand against the fireplace mantel. “Enough. I will not be lectured in my own home by an ungrateful daughter.”
Thomas looked at him coldly. “It stopped being only your home the day she paid to keep it standing.”
My father pointed at him. “You don’t get to speak about my daughter.”
Something shifted in Thomas’s expression.
It was small. Almost invisible.
