“There’s no administrative travel account at Oakhaven High School that pays for four thousand eight hundred dollars of spa passes and private steakhouse dinners,” Carl said from beside the truck bed.

Carl lifted a heavy wooden corn crate and set it on the tailgate with a slow, deliberate thud.

Grace wiped her palms over and over on her canvas apron, her eyes moving between Mark and our two children standing near the equipment shed door.

“You told me you were doing well at the high school, Mark,” Ruth said, her Midwestern way of speaking stripped of any warmth left in it.

“You told me you wanted to treat your mother to a nice getaway for her sixty-sixth birthday out of your own earnings.”