“If you’re here to beg, go home,” Mom hissed as the brass chain slid across the door. I stood on the porch in the snow, the house loud with laughter behind the glass, when headlights swept the yard and pinned me in white.
A black town car stopped at the curb. The man everyone swore was dead stepped out with a cane and a ledger, studied my face like a contract, and said, “Tell me—who’s been spending my money with your name?”