“I was wrong, Dad,” he said.

“At the cemetery.

The day we buried Mom.”

He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand, his thumb pressing into the muscle beneath his hairline.

“I was going under,” he said.

“The commercial loan on the shop equipment was eighty-four thousand dollars in default.

The bank sent a final demand letter the week before Mom died.”

I sat quietly and let him talk without cutting in.