He turned to the front door, his shoes squeaking on the polished boards as he walked out onto the wide front porch.

I followed him to the doorway and held the screen door open with my elbow.

Daniel leaned against one of the square white porch posts, gazing across the front lawn where the sycamore leaves were beginning to brown along the edges.

“The bank served a default notice on the Scottsdale house yesterday morning,” Daniel said, without turning around.

“The arrears add up to forty-two thousand eight hundred dollars.

If I don’t pay it off by November fourteenth, they’ll auction the house on the courthouse steps.”