“She’s excited,” she said.

“She says Chad has been very good to her.” I know, I said, to both.

Vernon reached for the iced tea and asked what the bank had said.

“They’re reviewing the transfer.” “Did they say they’d stop it?” “Not yet.”

My mother set three plates in a row and said maybe I should give my sister some room, and I said I had tried, and she asked whether I had asked Monique for the original document, and I said yes, and she asked, and?

“She wouldn’t show it to me.” Vernon took his glasses off again.