The bank’s confirmation of the huge land sale was safe.

Desmond’s words about me getting by kept echoing in the cab.

Someone was painting a very different picture of my life.

At noon, my father was sitting in a back booth at the Main Street diner.

He wore a faded flannel shirt.

A small leather ledger book lay open on the table next to his coffee mug.

I slid into the red vinyl booth across from him.

“You’re late,” Arthur said.