Chapter 15: The Furnace Dies

Clinton sat down.

I had never seen him obey anyone in his life, and he did it so fast the chair scraped.

"Dad," he said. "She's confused. Let me explain."

"You will," his father said. "After I've seen it."

He held out his hand to me, palm up, thick fingers cracked from winter.

I put Ellie's folder in it.

The room watched him read.

He went slowly, one page at a time, with his lips moving a little.

Marjorie leaned across and put her hand on his sleeve.

"Please," she said. "Not in front of the children. We can talk about this tomorrow."

"Take your hand off my arm, Marjorie."

She did, and her face went white and then pink.

"There's the bank's letter," he said, to nobody. "There's the payments. Here's a picture of a screen."

He turned the page around and held it up.

It was the screenshot I had taken on the video call, with Clinton's face in the corner.

Under it, in big plain numbers, the balance read two hundred and fourteen dollars.

"Is that what's in the cabin fund?" his father asked. "The one for the roof and the taxes?"

Clinton did not answer.

"Clinton."

"It's temporarily low."

"Seven years of twenty-one hundred a month."

"I had expenses."

"What expenses?" said the uncle in the flannel shirt.

"Family expenses," Clinton said. "Things everyone here has had the benefit of."

"Such as?"

Clinton looked around the table, and for the first time he could not find a friendly face.

"Dad's truck," he said finally. "I made the payments."

His father looked out the window at the new pickup in the yard.

"I thought we got a good deal," he said slowly. "You told me you got a bonus."

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