“Who told you about the twelve thousand?” he asked.

“I know what you took out,” I said.

“You destroyed our whole future over a little pride,” Seth said, backing down the porch steps into the pouring rain.

He walked to his red pickup at the curb, yanked open the driver’s door, and grabbed the second envelope off the truck’s dashboard.

He held it up toward the porch, his fingers crumpling the edge, then shoved it back under the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

At two o’clock on Sunday afternoon, the rain had stopped, leaving wet leaves plastered flat to the pavement in the Oak Street Dental parking lot.