“By using my savings.”

“I panicked.”

“By using your mother’s name.”

Tears gathered in his eyes. Once, that might have been enough to move me — and some part of me was still affected. He was still my son. I had held him through childhood fevers, taught him to balance a bicycle in our old driveway, paid for his braces, struggled beside him through algebra lessons neither of us liked.

A father never fully loses sight of the little boy hidden inside the adult. But Helen’s letters sat beside my hand, and the adult had done real harm.

“Tell me about the villa loan,” I said.