My father tried to explain that my benefits had been used for my housing.
Holt placed one document beside another.
On one side was my father’s signed statement claiming my survivor benefits had gone toward my housing needs.
On the other was the timestamped photograph of the storage room I had taken less than an hour before.
Holt rested his hand on the papers.
“Would you like to amend the form?”
My father did not answer.
The silence felt different from the silence I had known in that house.
This one belonged to him.
Inez had been standing near the door with her phone still in her hand. Filming had become such a habit for her that she raised it again almost without thinking.
My aunt Rosalind looked directly at her.
“Put it down.”
Inez hesitated.
Then the phone slipped from her hand and hit the floor.
The screen cracked.
No one rushed to pick it up.
Holt began laying out the rest of the documents one by one. There were falsified benefit forms, receipts, lease agreements, records connected to the Audi, and financial paperwork that showed money intended for me had gone somewhere else.
The total was more than $150,000 in survivor benefits diverted over six years.
Six years.
I thought about the envelopes arriving every August.
I thought about my father opening them in the kitchen when I was younger, always telling me they were for grownups.