He walked into the dining room, leaving wet footprints on the floor. He nodded dismissively at Susan. “Hey, Sis. Hope you’re not here to contest anything. Dad and I have a plan. I need the capital for a new venture. I’ll make it up to you later.”
He sat down across from me and unbuttoned his coat. The gold Rolex flashed under the chandelier.
“So, where do I sign, Dad? The deed?”
I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him. I tried to find the boy I’d taught to use a hammer. The one who cried when his hamster died. Where was he?
Sitting across from me was a predator. A parasite who had fed on his own mother’s soul.
“There’s nothing to sign yet, Greg,” I said. My voice was dry, like rust. “First, I want you to read something.”
I pushed the blue notebook toward him. Greg glanced at it with boredom.
“What’s this? Mom’s diary? Dad, I don’t have time for sentimental stuff.”
“Open it. Page one. 1985.”
Greg sighed and rolled his eyes, but he opened it. One second. Two. Three.
I watched his face change. First confusion, then recognition. Then, as he saw the columns of numbers and the dates, his skin turned a sickly, grayish yellow. He slammed the notebook shut.
“So what? Mom kept a ledger. She was frugal. You called me here to show me her grocery math?”
“Grocery math?” I asked. “There are hundreds of thousands of dollars in there, Greg.”
“Money she handed to you. Every Thursday. For forty years.”
Susan gasped. She leaned forward, her eyes wide.
“Dad, what are you talking about? What money?”
“This money!”
I threw the letters onto the table. The first one, in block letters.
“Read it, Susan. Out loud.”
Susan’s hands shook as she picked up the paper. “‘Dear Mom, Greg has done something terrible… we will kill him…’” She stopped, looking at her brother with pure horror. “Greg? What is this? Someone was going to kill you in 1985?”
Greg sat perfectly still. His eyes narrowed into two cold points. He realized this wasn’t a meeting. It was a trial.
But he was a gambler. He decided to double down.
“This is garbage,” he spat. “You found some old prank letters. Who knows who wrote that? Maybe Mom was losing it. Maybe she wrote them to herself.”
“To herself?” I laughed. “And did she hand the envelopes to herself too? In the alley behind the bank?”
I laid out the photos. The car. The hand with the ring. The exchange.
Greg went pale. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He stood up, knocking his chair back.
“You spied on me? You hired someone to follow your own son? You’ve lost your mind, old man!”
“Sit down!” I roared. It was the voice I used on a construction site to be heard over the jackhammers. “Sit down, you coward!”
Greg sank back into the chair. He looked like a cornered animal.
The mask of the successful businessman was gone. In its place was a mean, desperate kid caught stealing from the cookie jar.
“Why, Greg?” Susan asked, her voice breaking. “Why would you do this?”
“We were struggling in the nineties. Mom wore the same coat for a decade. And you… you were taking her money?”
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