My father sat down on the floor of the fellowship hall. Right there, next to his fallen chair.
The estate referred his case to the district attorney the following week.
He paid back every cent he could. Then he sold his boat, his truck, and his golf club membership to pay the rest.
Brittany called me a month later.
She was crying.
“I’m sorry, Nora. I laughed at you. I said ‘bring pie.’”
“You did,” I said.
“Can I come over? To Grandma’s house? I… I want to learn how to make it. The shoofly pie.”
I thought about it for a long time.
Then I said, “Okay. Saturday. Bring an apron.”
That Saturday, the two of us stood in Grandma’s kitchen with flour on our hands, reading the first card in the box.
Card number one.
At the bottom, in Grandma’s handwriting, was a line I had never noticed before.
