Chapter 8 — The Wire Transfers

The statements told a story Brandon had spent the better part of a year writing where I couldn’t see it.

Over eight months, in a careful escalating rhythm, he had moved money out — two thousand, then four, then eight, then larger and larger, the memo lines stamped with soft innocent words like Loan and Family Emergency and Business support. The name that came up most often on the receiving end was his brother Lucas; after him, Liam; and threaded all through it, several large transfers straight to his mother, Susan.

I added it on the calculator with a hand that would not stay steady, and it came to more than a hundred and forty thousand dollars, drained out of the account we’d built together and funneled quietly to the family I had spent seven years supporting with my own hands.