Then his voice, directed away from the phone.
“Kyle! Get up here now!”
Natalie looked at me again.
I gave her a small nod.
She was doing this exactly right.
“Mom, Dad, I’m going to hang up now. When you’re ready to have a real conversation, a real one, not one where you explain why you didn’t mean what you clearly meant, you can call us. Both of us.”
She hung up.
Then she sat down on the kitchen floor next to Ellie’s high chair and let out a breath she’d been holding for what seemed like years.
“How was that?” she asked.
“Perfect.”
“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
“That’s normal.”
She laughed.
Not a happy laugh.
The kind of laugh that comes when you’ve just done something terrifying and you’re still alive on the other side of it.
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I recognized as Glenn’s.
10:17 p.m.
“Brandon, we need to talk. Call me.”
I looked at the timestamp.
10:17.
The exact minute his world shifted.
I put my phone face down on the counter and picked up my daughter.
Glenn could wait.
He’d been waiting 14 months to find out the truth.
Another night wouldn’t hurt.
Chapter 7: The final confrontation
I didn’t call Glenn that night or the next morning.
I let three days pass.
During those three days, my phone lit up like a pinball machine.
Glenn called four times.
Donna sent two long texts that I read but didn’t respond to.
The first one started with, “Brandon, I had no idea how much you were doing for us.”
And ended with, “Please call Glenn. He’s not sleeping.”
The second one was shorter.
“We are so sorry. Please call.”
Kyle texted once.
Just once.
“Bro, we need to talk.”
I left them all on read.
On the morning of the fourth day, I drove to the Aldridge house alone.
Natalie offered to come, but I told her this first conversation needed to be just me and her parents.
She agreed.
She also told me something I didn’t expect.
“My dad called me last night. He was crying. I’ve never heard him cry before. Not when his mother died. Not when he retired. Not ever. He kept saying he didn’t know. I believe him, Brandon. I think he genuinely didn’t know where the mortgage money was coming from. He’s proud and he’s stubborn and he doesn’t look at things he doesn’t want to see. But he’s not a liar.”
I thought about that the whole drive over.
When I pulled into the driveway, Glenn was sitting on the porch, coat on, hands in his pockets, breath visible in the cold.
He looked like he’d aged 5 years in 4 days.
He stood up when he saw my truck but didn’t come down the steps.
He just waited.
I walked up and stood at the bottom of the stairs.
We looked at each other for a moment.
“Come inside,” he said.
Donna made coffee.
The kitchen table was set with three mugs.
Donna was standing by the counter, and I could see she’d been crying recently.
She didn’t try to hug me, which was the right call.
She just said, “Sit down, honey. Please.”
I sat.
Glenn sat across from me.