Part 6

I didn't tell him why. Mitch Kimbrough is fifty-seven. He's a roofer, with a sunburned neck and hands like leather. He's a good man. I have always believed that. After supper, while Grandma was washing dishes, I set Chad's letter on the table in front of him and pointed at the line. "Your son has told us he agrees this is the best option for you." He didn't even read it. He just looked down at the table. "How much, Dad?" I asked. "How much did Chad promise you?" It took him a long time to answer. "Twenty-five thousand," he said. "A consulting fee. When the house sold." He told me everything. Two big jobs had gone bad last year. A builder went bankrupt and never paid him. He owed sixty thousand dollars to his suppliers and the bank. He was about to lose his truck. "But it's not just the money, Laurel," he said, and his voice broke. "In March, Mama fell in that kitchen. She lay on the floor five hours before the mail carrier saw her through the window. Five hours. I can't stop thinking about it. She can't live out here alone anymore." I understood that part. I'd been scared about it too. But I was so angry I was shaking. "So you let a stranger scare her with fines and lawyers? You let him call Grandpa's flag a rag?" "I didn't know he'd do it like that!" "You knew enough to take his money." We were both yelling. I had never yelled at my father in my life. Then we heard a dish set down very gently in the sink. My grandmother was standing in the kitchen doorway, drying her hands on a towel. She'd heard all of it. She walked over and stood in front of her son. "Your daddy poured that concrete with you in my belly, Mitchell," she said quietly. My father put his face in his hands. Then he stood up, walked out to his truck, and drove away without a word. Grandma sat down in his chair and didn't speak for a long time. I held her hand. I've never seen anybody look so tired and so sad. The next morning, another letter came from the association. "By decision of the Board of Directors, the removal crew will return Saturday at 7:00 a.m." The board. Stonebridge has a three-person board. Texas law says a board like that has to decide fines and foreclosures in a real meeting, with notice to the homeowners. I asked around. Nobody had ever seen a notice. So I called the other two board members. Carl Henshaw had moved to Florida in April and hadn't been to anything since. Marjorie Fairbanks, a retired schoolteacher, said, "Fines? What fines? Chad told me he was handling some paperwork." When I told her about Opal, she started to cry. They both wrote me letters that night saying the board had never met and never voted on any of it. That week, a few of my soldiers heard what was happening.