The transfer had completed three weeks ago, just like it had every month since my mother passed away.
Yet my father was staring at an eighty-four dollar utility bill like it was a mountain he could not climb.
I looked down at my mother’s silver watch, the metal cold against my skin.
The three thousand two hundred dollars was gone from my account, but my father believed Jason was saving the house.
I stared at the green checkmark on the screen.
The numbers on the phone did not lie, but the silence in the house felt like a trap.
I tapped the screen again to refresh the page, but the balance remained exactly the same.
The monthly thirty-two hundred dollar transfer was gone, and there was nothing left in the account but the confirmation.
The glare of the phone screen made my eyes ache in the dark bedroom. I slid the device under my pillow, the silence of the old ranch house settling over me like heavy dust.
By eight the next morning, the hallway smelled of burnt toast and pine cleaner. My father was shuffling back and forth between the coat closet and the telephone table, his slippered feet dragging on the hallway carpet.
He stopped when he saw me, his hands deep in his cardigan pockets. He cleared his throat, a dry, raspy sound that always preceded some minor complaint.
“Have you seen my reading glasses, Claire?” he asked, his eyes squinting against the morning light. “The ones with the black frames.”
“They were on the kitchen counter last night, Dad,” I said, stepping past him toward the linen closet. “I can look after I put these towels away.”
He ran his hand along the door frame, his fingers tracing a nick in the white paint. He did not look at me.
“Jason had to go down to the water department office yesterday,” he said. “He had to pay the eighty-four dollars himself because the online system rejected the household card.”
