“Can we go into the front hall for five minutes and talk this through?”

“No, Trevor,” I said, holding my ground on the top wooden step.

He looked past my shoulder at the open front door, where my father stood silent in the shadow of the hall.

“I’ve made terrible mistakes,” Trevor said, moving up one step.

“The pressure from those debts was driving me out of my mind, Val.

But we can fix this together if we just sit down without any lawyers in the room.”

He adjusted his gold wristwatch, his fingers trembling a little against the metal clasp.