My father leaned toward the iron gate as Evelyn Mercer turned the final page in the folder.
The anger had disappeared from his face.
For the first time since he and my mother arrived in their black SUV, he looked uncertain.
“Who is that?” he asked.
Evelyn held the document where only she and my parents could read it.
“Your mother’s independent trustee,” she said.
My mother blinked.
“That’s impossible.”
Evelyn glanced toward me, then back at them.
“No.
What’s impossible is pretending you didn’t know about him.
His name appears on correspondence sent to this address eighteen months ago.
Correspondence bearing your signature.”
My mother opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
I stood twenty feet up the driveway with my arms folded tightly across myself, not because I was cold this time, but because part of me still expected the scene to snap back into the old shape.
My father demanding.
My mother rewriting reality.
Me explaining myself until exhaustion sounded like guilt.
But the gate remained closed.
That mattered more than I expected.
