I waited, because I knew my father, and I knew there was a second half coming.

“So is Monique.”

“Vernon,” my mother said — the way you say a name when you mean be gentler.

But Vernon was not being cruel.

He set the napkin down and said, “I’m not saying we leave her if she truly needs help.

I’m saying we do not promise to replace money she chooses to move.

Excitement doesn’t make a transfer safer.”

“I wasn’t asking you for money,” I said.