I called Dad.

He answered after four rings.

“Madison?”

“Where are you?”

“Why?”

“Because Mom says you’re at work.”

Silence.

Then he said, “Meet me at Keller’s Diner.”

Twenty minutes later, I found him in a back booth.

He looked older than he had at Christmas.

Not physically older.

Defeated older.

I sat across from him.

“Did you know Derek was sleeping with Sophia?”

His eyes widened.

“No.”

One word.

Immediate.

Instinctive.

Real.

A strange pressure formed behind my ribs.

“Mom said you did.”

“I found out after you did.”

“When?”

“The morning after.”

“Then why didn’t you call me?”

His face collapsed.

“Because your mother told me you didn’t want to speak to either of us.”

I stared at him.

“She told me you knew for months.”

He closed his eyes.

And suddenly I understood.

Mom had not merely lied to me.

She had isolated us from each other.

“Dad, why did you leave the bank?”

His fingers tightened around his coffee cup.

“That’s complicated.”

“Try me.”

He remained silent for so long that the waitress refilled our water glasses twice.

Then he asked, “Do you remember Sophia’s treatment?”

“Of course.”

“You believe I refinanced the house to pay her debts.”

“That’s what you told me.”

“I did refinance the house.”

“But?”

He looked straight into my eyes.

“The money wasn’t only for Sophia.”

My stomach dropped.

“What does that mean?”

He rubbed both hands over his face.

“Your mother had debts too.”

The diner seemed to tilt.

“Gambling?”

“No.”

“What debts?”

He looked ashamed.

“I didn’t know at first.”

“Dad.”

“Your grandmother’s trust.”

My grandmother Ruth had died when I was nineteen.

She left money to Sophia and me.

Not millions.

But enough that each of us received annual distributions and would inherit the principal at thirty.

Mom had been named trustee.

I was twenty-nine.

Sophia was twenty-seven.

I suddenly couldn’t feel my hands.

“What about the trust?”

Dad’s eyes filled with tears.

“Your mother borrowed from it.”

“Borrowed?”

“She always said she would replace it.”

“How much?”

“Madison—”

“How much?”

He whispered the number.

$412,000.

I actually laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because my brain had rejected the possibility of hearing anything else.

“Four hundred and twelve thousand dollars?”

“Over several years.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know all of it.”

“How can you not know?”

“Because I didn’t find out until seven months ago.”

That explained his retirement.

Not retirement.

Something else.

“What happened at the bank?”

He stared at the tabletop.

“Your mother asked me to approve a home-equity restructuring. I started reviewing our finances. Things didn’t match.”

He discovered withdrawals from the trust.

Transfers.

Payments.

Cash advances.

Some of the transactions had been disguised as educational expenses for Sophia.

Others were labeled medical reimbursements.

Several had my electronic approval.

Except I had never approved anything.

I thought of the fake Grand View authorization.

My stomach turned.

“How long has she been forging my signature?”

Dad whispered, “Years.”

That night, Naomi and I sat on my living-room floor surrounded by bank records.

Dad had given me copies of everything.

The deeper we looked, the worse it became.

The stolen wedding deposit wasn’t the beginning.

It was the latest transaction in a pattern stretching back almost a decade.

At twenty-four, I had supposedly authorized a $19,000 “early beneficiary distribution.”

At twenty-six, another $34,000.

At twenty-eight, $61,000.