Chapter 4: The Check

My father came on Tuesday morning in a navy blazer, carrying a check in a cream envelope.

He parked his silver Mercedes on Maybelle's street between a rusted pickup and a trash can.

Two doors down, Mrs. Avery stopped watering her tomato plants and stood very still with the hose running.

I met him on the porch and did not ask him inside.

"Waverly," Luther said. "Honey. Please."

He looked older than he had on Sunday, and he kept rubbing his white moustache.

"Dad," I said. I hadn't called him that in a month. "You drove a long way."

"Your mother and I want you home."

"Does she?"

He cleared his throat.

"She's upset, but she'll come around if you meet her halfway."

He swallowed.

"A short note to Marlena, a family dinner, and we put this behind us."

He held out the envelope.

"This is for the house," he said. "The bank trouble. I want Maybelle to be comfortable."

I took the envelope and opened it.

The check was written in his careful engineer's hand, on the Merriman Foundation account.

Forty-eight thousand, two hundred dollars, to the dollar.

I looked up at him.

"Yesterday afternoon a man handed Maybelle a notice," I said. "It was in a manila envelope. Nobody has told you the amount."

Luther didn't move.

"The bank mentioned it."

"The bank called you?"

"I'm on the board," he said. "It's a courtesy."

"So you knew the loan was being called before the man reached our door."

His face went gray, one slow patch at a time.

"It wasn't my decision."

"Then whose was it?"

He didn't answer.

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