MY SON H.I.T ME 30 TIMES IN FRONT OF HIS WIFE…

He turned toward the SUV, then paused.

“Your son didn’t borrow two million dollars for a business.”

I said nothing.

Victor opened the passenger door.

“He borrowed it to keep his wife quiet.”

Then he got in, and the SUV rolled backward down the drive.

I sat there long after it disappeared.

Santos walked to the gatepost and picked up the envelope with two fingers. “Want me to open it?”

“No,” I said.

But I took it from him.

Inside my house, the air was still and smelled faintly of cedar. Elaine’s photograph sat on the hallway table, smiling from a summer twenty years gone. I stood before it with the envelope in my hand.

“You’d tell me to sit down first,” I murmured.

So I did.

At the kitchen table, I opened it.

There were photographs.

Not many.

Five.

The first showed Brandon outside a hotel, face turned away, arm around a woman who was not Amber.

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