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**Part 2**

The clock kept ticking. No one else moved.

“Twelve transfers,” I said. “Six thousand dollars on the first of every month for the last year. Seventy-two thousand total. I sent it to Khloe’s account because you wouldn’t let me pay the lender directly. She said she would hand it to you in cash. Every month she texted back one word: handled.”

Dad set the wineglass down. His hand stayed on the stem. “Khloe?”

Khloe’s phone was face-up beside her plate. The screen had gone dark. She looked at it, then at me, then at the tablecloth. “Lucas was helping with a few things. I didn’t want to worry you with the details.”

“What details?” Mom’s voice was thin. “You told us the bank had worked out a forbearance. You said the payments were paused until the restaurant lease sold.”

“They were paused,” Khloe said. She reached for her water and missed the first time. “I was going to catch everything up once the Chicago bonus cleared. Lucas offered. I didn’t ask him to keep going.”

“You didn’t stop me either,” I said. “And the porch still needs paint. Mom’s been buying the cheaper coffee. The mortgage statements I asked her to forward last month never arrived. So I called the servicer this afternoon on the drive down. The account is four months behind. The forbearance ended in March. No cash payments have been posted since January.”

Dad’s face had gone the color of the napkins. He turned to Khloe. “Where is the money?”

“It’s complicated.” She straightened her shoulders the way she did in client meetings. “Some of it covered the car repairs you didn’t want Lucas to know about. Some went to the deposit on my new place so I could take the promotion. I was going to replace it. The market’s been slow.”

Mom’s spoon finally clattered into the bowl. “You used it for an apartment?”

“It was temporary.” Khloe looked at me. “You said you wanted to help. You never asked for receipts.”

“I asked if it was handled,” I said. “You said yes. Twelve times.” I pulled my phone from my pocket, opened the banking app, and set it on the table between the roast and the candles. The transfer history was already on the screen—dates, amounts, the memo line I had typed each month: *Mortgage – Karen & Michael, via Khloe.* “I’m stopping the automatic payment tonight. The next six thousand stays in my account. If the house needs saving, someone else can explain to the lender why the last four payments never arrived.”

Dad stared at the phone. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “You should have told us.”

“I told Khloe. She told me it was handled. You told me at this table that she earned everything on her own.” I picked up my napkin, folded it once, and set it beside my plate. “I’m not interested in another speech about who figured life out. I’m interested in the four months of statements that don’t show a single dollar of what I sent.”

Khloe pushed her chair back. “You’re making this ugly on his birthday.”

“The ugly part happened when the money left my account and didn’t reach the mortgage,” I said. “I’m just done pretending it didn’t.”

I stood. Mom reached for my wrist, then let her hand fall. Dad was still looking at the phone. Khloe had her arms crossed, but the confidence she had carried into the room was gone. I walked to the front hall, took my coat from the peg, and opened the door. Cold air moved across the worn floorboards.

“Lucas,” Dad said behind me.

I paused with my hand on the knob. “The servicer’s number is on the last statement Mom has in the drawer by the phone. If you call them tomorrow, ask for the payment history. It matches what I just showed you. After that, the two of you can decide what ‘handled’ was supposed to mean.”

I stepped onto the porch. The light flickered once and steadied. Behind me the dining room stayed quiet except for the clock. I got in the car, canceled the next transfer before I pulled out of the driveway, and drove toward Minneapolis with the phone face-down on the passenger seat. The house grew smaller in the rearview mirror. For the first time in a year, the six thousand dollars that would have left my account in nine days was still mine. So was the question of what happened next.