He saw me coming across the yard and he didn’t even look worried. That’s what got me. He flipped a steak and said, “Hey. You should’ve called first.” I held up the statement. I said, “Eight thousand dollars, Dale.

There was three hundred forty.” He shrugged like I’d asked about the weather. “Dad wanted me to manage it.” I said, “Manage it or empty it?” He flipped the steak again. Wouldn’t look at me. “I kept the receipts,” he said.

That’s when I lost it a little. I said, “Receipts for what work? The gutter’s still broken. It’s been broken since 2019.” He started in about how I wasn’t around, how I didn’t know what the house needed, how easy it is for me to drive up once and judge him. And maybe some of that’s fair. I wasn’t around. But you don’t fix being mad at your sister by stealing your father’s house. The steaks were burning. He just kept flipping them. Anything so he didn’t have to look at me.

Brooke had been quiet the whole time, standing by the back door with her arms crossed. And then she stepped forward and put her hand on Dale’s arm. She wasn’t even talking to me. She was talking to him, fast and low, like she’d forgotten I was standing six feet away.

She said, “Dale, don’t say anything else.” Then she said it. “Not until we call our attorney about the other account she doesn’t know about. The one where we moved the rest.”

The rest.

So the eight thousand wasn’t even what was left. It was just what they didn’t bother to hide.

I drove home that night with the statement on the passenger seat. I have eleven days left now.

I haven’t filed anything yet. I keep picking up the phone and putting it back down, because once I file it, that’s it, that’s my brother in handcuffs, that’s Dad’s name in a courtroom. I keep hearing him say, “I poured that step myself.” I don’t know what I’m going to do. I just know that drip is still going in that kitchen, and the clock on the wall says I’m almost out of time.