Chapter 11: What She Took Back

Dale held the door wide.

"Come in out of the cold, Lyds," he said. "Both of you."

Neil came up the steps behind me, breathing hard, and walked in first as if he lived there.

I went in after him.

The kitchen smelled of toast and woodsmoke.

A duffel bag sat open on the table between a loaf of bread and a bottle of whiskey.

It was full of paper envelopes.

Cora stood at the stove with her back to the room and a dish towel in both hands.

She didn't turn around.

"Sit down," Neil said to me. "I'll tell you all of it."

"I'll stand."

"Lydia."

"Tell me why."

He rubbed his face with both hands.

"Dale took four hundred thousand dollars out of the charter company," he said.

"Out of the boat loans and the clients' deposits. He lost it. I don't know where."

"Poker," Dale said cheerfully. "Mostly."

"Mom found out. She said the lenders would take the house, the agency and Dad's name.

"She said Dale had to disappear until she fixed it."

"So she sank a boat."

"The boat was already insured. The payout cleared half of it."

"And the rest?"

"The rest is people Dale owes who don't take payment plans." Neil's voice cracked.

"He can't come back until they're paid. So we've been paying, a little at a time.

"Mom took the equity out of the house. I took our vacation savings. Then there was only one pile left."

"Mine."

"I was going to tell you."

"When?"

"After Dale was safe."

"You've been paying for his funeral and his rent and his poker," I said, "with my grandmother's money."

"It's family money," Dale said gently. "That's what family's for."

I looked at him.

He was leaning on the counter with his arms folded, easy and tanned.

He had not once looked sorry.

"You watched," I said.

"Watched what?"

"The dinner. The window table. You were there."

Cora made a sound at the stove.

"Mom held a phone under the tablecloth," Neil said. "He asked to see it. It was his anniversary too."

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