Sam came over from the dining table, adjusting his wire-rim glasses with his middle finger as he looked at the blue paper.

“Why is there a check in a Christmas present?” Sam asked.

“It isn’t a present, Sam,” I said.

Generosity is easy when it costs no truth.

I folded the check back into the note, slid them both into the envelope, and tucked it into the inside pocket of my coat.

“Finish your toast,” I told the boys.

“We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”

At a quarter to six, I stopped the SUV at the tall iron gates of the Caldwell estate.