PART 2: FIFTEEN YEARS OF INVISIBLE DEBT
I kept my hand on the brown folder
Ranata stared at it as though she knew something dangerous was inside.
Dad leaned forward.
“Fay, what is that?”
“Something important,” I said. “But I want to understand these papers first.”
Ranata let out a strained breath.
“Can we please not make this more dramatic than it needs to be?”
I turned toward her.
“Did you take money from Mom and Dad for me?”
She looked at our parents.
I kept my hand on the brown folder
Ranata stared at it as though she knew something dangerous was inside.
Dad leaned forward.
“Fay, what is that?”
“Something important,” I said. “But I want to understand these papers first.”
Ranata let out a strained breath.
“Can we please not make this more dramatic than it needs to be?”
I turned toward her.
“Did you take money from Mom and Dad for me?”
She looked at our parents.
“That’s not a fair way to ask.”
“It’s a simple question.”
“Fay, there were times when you needed help.”
“When?”
She hesitated.
“You had equipment problems.”
“Which equipment?”
“The tractor, for one.”
I nodded.
“Which tractor?”
Ranata looked irritated.
“How am I supposed to remember every detail from fifteen years?”
“Because you apparently remember asking for money.”
Dad lifted his hand.
“Enough. One at a time.”
He turned toward me.
“Fay, your sister told us you were having financial problems. She said you wouldn’t come to us directly because you were embarrassed.”
I felt something tighten behind my ribs.
“She told you that?”
Mom nodded.
“She said you didn’t want us worrying.”
I looked at Ranata.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Dad continued.
“At first, it was a few thousand dollars. Then more. She told us she was helping you manage the expenses and that she would make sure the money reached you.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
Mom looked down.
“Ranata said you would deny needing help.”
I sat back.
There it was.
The perfect arrangement.
If I admitted struggling, Ranata was right.
If I denied struggling, Ranata was also right.
My silence had become evidence against me.
Dad rubbed his forehead.
“She said you were ashamed.”
“I wasn’t ashamed, Dad. I wasn’t asking for money.”
He stared at the papers.
For years, I had wondered why my parents treated me with a strange mixture of disappointment and pity.
Now I understood.
They thought they had spent fifteen years rescuing me.
And they thought I had never once thanked them.
“Do you remember Christmas seven years ago?” I asked.
Mom looked surprised.
“Of course.”
“Dad told me I needed to start taking responsibility for my life.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I remember.”
“I had just paid off the last loan on my main equipment that month. I was proud of it. I came here for dinner, and you spent twenty minutes telling me that I couldn’t keep expecting other people to carry me.”
Dad said nothing.
I turned toward Mom.
“Do you remember when I offered to pay for your new washing machine?”
She nodded slowly.
“You told me not to waste money.”
“Because Ranata told you I couldn’t afford it.”
Mom’s expression changed.
“She said you were trying to prove something.”
I looked at my sister.
“Was I?”
Ranata folded her arms.
“You’ve always taken everything personally.”
I almost laughed.
Nearly three hundred thousand dollars had disappeared under my name, and she was accusing me of being sensitive.
Desmond finally moved away from the sink.
“Ranata,” he said quietly, “you need to explain the transfers.”
She turned sharply.
“Don’t start.”
His expression hardened.
“I’m not starting anything. Your father asked a question.”
I looked at him.
He seemed uncomfortable, but not surprised.
That frightened me more than I wanted to admit.
Dad picked up the first page.
“The earliest transfer we found was eleven years ago. Five thousand dollars.”
I frowned.
“Eleven years?”
“That’s as far back as the statements I printed tonight go. Your mother remembers helping before that, but we haven’t found the older records yet.”
I examined the dates.
There were several payments every year.
Some were small.
Others were enormous compared with the expenses they supposedly covered.
One transfer was for $18,000.
Description: emergency equipment repair.
I remembered that month.
My old tractor had broken down during planting season.
I had repaired it myself with a replacement part that cost less than six hundred dollars.
Ranata must have heard about the breakdown during a family dinner.
I pointed at the entry.
“This repair cost me $574. I have the invoice.”
Ranata looked away.
I pointed at another transfer.
“Twelve thousand dollars for a barn roof.”
I shook my head.
“I replaced the roof myself with help from two neighbors. Materials cost a little over four thousand.”
Dad stared at me.
“You have receipts?”
“Every one.”
Mom pressed a hand to her mouth.
Ranata suddenly stood.
“This is ridiculous.”
Dad looked up.
“Sit down.”
“I was trying to help this family.”
“Sit down, Ranata.”
His voice was sharper than I had heard it in years.
She slowly lowered herself into the chair.
I opened my laptop bag and took out a small notebook.
I had brought it because I didn’t know what I would need to remember.
Now I wrote down the total.
$286,400.
Then I looked at Dad.
“Where did you send the money?”
He turned a page toward me.
“To an account Ranata gave us.”
“Was it in my name?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see a receipt from me?”
He didn’t answer.
“Did you ever see a bank statement showing the money reached me?”
Again, silence.
Mom whispered, “We trusted her.”
I looked across the table.
Ranata’s face was tight with anger.
For the first time, I understood that the money was only one part of what she had taken.
She had taken my parents’ trust.
She had taken their respect for me.
She had turned every ordinary difficulty in my life into a reason for them to admire her.
And she had made me look ungrateful for help I never received.
“Why?” I asked her.
She stared at me.
“Why what?”
“Why would you do this?”
Her eyes filled suddenly.
It might have moved me if I hadn’t just spent an hour looking at the records.
“You have no idea what it’s like,” she said.
“Then tell me.”
“You’ve always been free to do whatever you wanted. You bought your land. You disappeared into that farm. You never had to worry about appearances.”
I frowned.
“What does that have to do with taking money?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
Desmond pulled out a chair.
“Ranata, tell them what you told me.”
She looked at him with something close to panic.
“Desmond.”
He didn’t move.
“What did she tell you?” I asked.
He looked at my parents.
“She told me years ago that Fay had borrowed money from the family and that she was handling the repayments.”
My mouth went dry.
“Repayments?”
He nodded.
“She said the situation was private. She said Fay didn’t want anyone discussing it.”
I stared at Ranata.
“You told your husband I owed money too?”
She wiped her eyes.
“I was trying to keep everyone from worrying.”
“By lying to everyone?”
Dad pushed his chair back.
“Where is the money, Ranata?”
She looked toward the kitchen window.
No answer.
“Where is it?”
Her voice broke.
“It’s gone.”
Mom made a small sound.
Dad went completely still.
I looked at the handwritten total again.
Two hundred eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars.
Gone.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then I asked the question that mattered most.
“Did you ever intend to tell me?”
Ranata looked at me.
There was no answer in her face.
Only resentment.
Finally, she whispered, “You weren’t supposed to find out like this.”
I closed my notebook.
“How was I supposed to find out?”
She didn’t respond.
Dad turned toward the brown folder again.
“Fay, I still want to know what’s in there.”
I looked down at it.
I had brought proof that I wasn’t the helpless daughter they believed me to be.
But now, showing them felt different.
I no longer wanted applause.
I wanted to know whether the truth mattered when it was inconvenient.
So I opened the folder.
And placed the first document on the table.
PART 3: THE TRUTH NOBODY EXPECTED
The first page was the closing statement.
Dad picked it up.
He had spent most of his working life in construction and understood contracts well enough to recognize the document.
His eyes moved across the page.
Then stopped.
He read the figure again.
I watched his expression change.
Confusion.
Disbelief.
Then something I had never seen before.
Uncertainty.
“Fay,” he said slowly, “what is this?”
“The sale of my farm.”
He looked at me.
“You sold it?”
“Three days ago.”
Mom leaned forward.
“Your whole farm?”
“Yes.”
Ranata stared at the paper.
Dad looked down again.
Then he read the number aloud.
“Thirty-nine million dollars.”
The kitchen went silent.
Mom blinked.
“What?”
Dad turned the page toward her.
She looked at it for several seconds.
Then she looked at me.
“Fay, is this real?”
“Yes.”
“Thirty-nine million?”
“That’s the purchase price. My accountant is handling the taxes and the remaining obligations.”
Dad slowly lowered the document.
“But how?”
I explained the expansion project.
The surveys.
The negotiations.
The company’s need for the property.
The years of work that had made the land productive and well maintained.
I told them about the lawyers, the appraisals, and the final agreement.
I kept my voice calm.
I didn’t want to sound triumphant.
The moment was too painful for that.
Dad stared at the folder.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
I looked at him.
“Would you have believed me?”
He opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Mom started crying.
“All this time, we thought…”
“I know what you thought.”
She covered her face.
I had imagined this reveal more than once.
Sometimes, during the long negotiations, I pictured telling my parents the news over dinner.
I imagined Dad looking proud.
I imagined Mom hugging me.
I imagined Ranata finally running out of clever remarks.
But sitting at that table, I didn’t feel victorious.
I felt tired.
Because I had just learned that my sister had spent years convincing our parents to finance a life I wasn’t living.
Ranata reached for the closing statement.
I moved it closer to Dad instead.
She noticed.
Her eyes narrowed.
“So that’s why you’ve been acting strange.”
I looked at her.
“I haven’t been acting strange.”
“You’ve been keeping secrets.”
I stared at her.
Then I laughed once.
It wasn’t a happy sound.
“You’re going to accuse me of keeping secrets?”
She flushed.
“You could have told us.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re family.”
The word landed between us.
Family.
For fifteen years, that word had been used to explain why I should tolerate insults, dismiss criticism, and never make anyone uncomfortable.
Now Ranata was using it because I had money.
I leaned forward.
“You told Mom and Dad I couldn’t pay my bills. You took money in my name. You told your husband I owed the family. And now you’re angry because I didn’t tell you about a private business transaction?”
Her eyes filled again.
“I made mistakes.”
“Yes,” I said. “You did.”
Mom reached for my hand.
“Fay, sweetheart, why didn’t you tell us you were doing so well?”
I looked at her.
“Mom, I did tell you.”
She frowned.
“When?”
“Every time you asked how the farm was doing, I told you it was fine.”
“But you never said…”
“I never said I was rich. Because I wasn’t. Not like this. But I told you I was paying my bills. I told you the business was stable. I told you I didn’t need help.”
Mom lowered her eyes.
“You did.”
“Nobody believed me.”
Dad rubbed his forehead.
“Ranata told us you were hiding the truth.”
“And you believed her.”
He looked directly at me.
“Yes.”
That single word hurt more than I expected.
Not because it surprised me.
Because he finally said it without trying to soften it.
I nodded.
“Thank you for being honest.”
Dad looked down at the transfers.
“I don’t know how we let this happen.”
Ranata suddenly spoke.
“Because you wanted to help your daughter.”
We all looked at her.
She continued, her voice rising.
“That’s what parents do. They help their children. Why is everyone acting like I stole from strangers?”
Dad’s face changed.
“You told us the money was for Fay.”
“It was for family.”
“No,” I said quietly. “You said it was for me.”
She glared at me.
“You have thirty-nine million dollars. Does this money really matter to you?”
I felt something inside me settle.
There it was.
The sentence that explained everything.
She wasn’t sorry that she had taken the money.
She was angry that I no longer looked like someone who could complain about it.
“It matters,” I said.
“Why? You could replace it without noticing.”
“Because it wasn’t yours.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You’re unbelievable.”
I looked at Dad.
“That money came from you and Mom. It was your savings. Your retirement. Your security.”
Mom began crying harder.
Dad’s hands trembled slightly as he gathered the pages.
I turned back to Ranata.
“You didn’t just take money. You made them think I was draining their future.”
Her expression hardened.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“No.”
I took a breath.
“I’m not enjoying any part of it.”
Desmond spoke from beside the sink.
“Neither am I.”
Ranata turned toward him.
“Stay out of this.”
He shook his head.
“I can’t.”
Something passed between them.
A look I couldn’t interpret.
Then Desmond said, “Your parents need to know what happened to the money.”
Ranata stood so abruptly her chair scraped against the floor.
“Desmond, stop.”
He looked exhausted.
“Tell them.”
She shook her head.
“Please.”
Dad rose.
“Ranata, sit down and explain.”
For a moment, she looked like a child cornered by a question she couldn’t escape.
Then she sat.
She stared at the table.
And began talking.
The first few transfers had gone toward ordinary household expenses.
A credit card balance.
A car payment.
Bills she and Desmond had struggled to manage.
She had told herself she would replace the money.
Then another expense appeared.
And another.
At some point, asking for help became easier than admitting she had been lying.
She discovered that mentioning my farm made Mom and Dad sympathetic.
A broken tractor sounded believable.
A bad harvest sounded believable.
An emergency repair sounded believable.
And because I rarely discussed money, there was no obvious way for them to contradict her.
She had used that silence.
Year after year.
Dad listened without interrupting.
Mom stared at the table.
Desmond explained that he had known their finances were strained, but Ranata had given him different explanations for the family transfers. He had not understood the full extent of what she had told our parents until the questions started that afternoon.
I didn’t know how much he had suspected before then.
And I wasn’t prepared to accept anyone’s version without records.
But one thing was clear.
Ranata had created two different stories.
To our parents, she was rescuing me.
To her husband, she was handling a private family debt.
And to me, she was simply the older sister who liked making small comments about my old truck.
I looked at the transfer total again.
“Is that all of it?”
Ranata didn’t answer.
Dad looked up.
“What do you mean?”
“These records only go back eleven years.”
Mom’s expression changed.
She slowly turned toward Ranata.
“There were earlier payments.”
Ranata shut her eyes.
I felt the room grow colder.
Dad’s voice became very quiet.
“How many?”
Ranata whispered, “I don’t remember.”
I looked at the pages spread across the table.
For the first time, I understood that the number at the bottom wasn’t necessarily the full amount.
It was only the amount my parents had found.
And suddenly, the thirty-nine million dollars in my folder seemed like the least important figure in the room.
PART 4: THE RECORDS THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
I didn’t sleep much that night.
I returned home shortly after ten, leaving my parents with the transfer records and Ranata with the questions she had spent years avoiding.
Before I left, Dad asked whether I would come back the next morning.
I told him I would.
Then I drove through the dark countryside with both hands tight on the steering wheel.
The roads were familiar.
I had driven them after failed harvests, difficult negotiations, equipment breakdowns, and days when I was too tired to make dinner.
But I had never driven them feeling quite so alone.
For years, I had accepted that my family underestimated me.
I thought it was an ordinary disappointment.
Something I could live with.
Now I understood that their disappointment had been deliberately maintained.
Every time I made progress, Ranata had a reason to minimize it.
Every time I repaired something, she called it evidence that the farm was falling apart.
Every time I refused an offer of help, she described me as proud.
She had turned my independence into proof of my dependence.
I pulled into my driveway and sat in the truck for several minutes.
The farmhouse was dark except for the porch light.
I looked across the fields.
I had sold the land, but the agreement allowed me time to complete the transition and move my belongings.
For fifteen years, this place had been the center of my life.
I had worked here.
Worried here.
Made mistakes here.
And built something valuable without my family ever understanding it.
I had thought the sale would be the most emotional part of leaving.
I was wrong.
The next morning, I called my accountant.
I explained the situation carefully.
He listened, then suggested that I keep my own financial records organized and avoid mixing the dispute with my recent sale.
I agreed.
Then I contacted my attorney.
I didn’t ask him to threaten anyone.
I asked what steps would be appropriate if my parents wanted help reviewing the transfers and recovering money that had been obtained through false representations.
He explained that the records mattered, that the older transactions might require additional documentation, and that my parents should obtain independent legal advice.
He also warned me not to make assumptions about the total until the accounts had been reviewed.
That made sense.
I wasn’t interested in inventing a bigger number.
The truth was already bad enough.
When I returned to my parents’ house late that morning, Dad was sitting at the kitchen table.
He looked older than he had the night before.
Mom stood at the counter.
There were more papers on the table.
Ranata wasn’t there.
Neither was Desmond.
Dad pointed to the chair beside him.
“We found more.”
I sat.
He had located older bank statements and several handwritten notes Mom had kept with household records.
She had always been organized in her own way.
Receipts in envelopes.
Bills in labeled folders.
Important dates written on the backs of calendars.
For years, Dad had teased her about keeping too much paper.
Now those papers mattered.
The additional records showed transfers and checks from the earlier years.
Some had descriptions.
Others had only dates and amounts.
Mom had written my name beside several of them.
I looked at one note.
Fay – tractor trouble.
Another said:
Help for Fay. Ranata handling.
My chest tightened.
Mom sat across from me.
“I remember this one,” she said, touching a page. “Ranata told us you were behind on property taxes.”
I shook my head.
“I’ve never been behind on property taxes.”
“I know that now.”
She looked at me.
“I should have asked you.”
I didn’t answer immediately.
Then I said, “Yes. You should have.”
Her eyes filled.
“I thought I was protecting your pride.”
I looked at the old note.
“Mom, you weren’t protecting my pride. You were protecting a story someone else told you.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
Dad had started a separate list of the older payments.
He had not added them to the confirmed total yet because some needed verification.
I respected that.
After what had happened, none of us needed another story built on assumptions.
We spent the morning comparing dates with my farm records.
It was strange work.
Painful, but strangely clarifying.
A supposed equipment emergency appeared during a year when I had purchased a used tractor with my own savings.
A supposed utility crisis appeared during a month when my electricity bill had been unusually low.
Another transfer was labeled fencing repairs, even though I had completed that work myself.
Each contradiction made Dad quieter.
At one point, he set down his pen.
“Fay, I owe you an apology.”
I looked up.
He swallowed.
“I treated you like someone who couldn’t take care of herself.”
I waited.
He continued.
“I thought we were helping you, and I was angry because I believed you wouldn’t acknowledge it.”
My throat tightened.
“I know.”
“I said things I shouldn’t have said.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“I was wrong.”
I had wanted to hear those words for years.
But hearing them didn’t erase the memories.
The Christmas dinners.
The disappointed looks.
The lectures.
The way he always asked Ranata for advice before asking me about my own life.
I looked down at the table.
“I don’t know what to do with that apology yet.”
Dad’s face fell.
I continued.
“But I appreciate you saying it.”
He nodded again.
“I understand.”
Mom reached across the table.
This time, I let her hold my hand.
We sat quietly for a while.
Then Dad asked a question I hadn’t expected.
“Are you going to help us recover the money?”
I looked at him.
“Yes. If that’s what you want.”
He exhaled.
“I don’t want to destroy your sister.”
“Neither do I.”
Mom looked relieved.
But I wasn’t finished.
“I also don’t want everyone pretending this was a misunderstanding.”
Dad nodded.
“It wasn’t.”
“Ranata made choices. For years. And those choices affected all of us.”
Mom wiped her eyes.
“I know.”
I told them what my attorney had said.
They agreed to consult someone independently and bring the records.
No shouting.
No threats.
Just documentation.
It felt like the first sensible decision anyone had made since the truth came out.
That afternoon, Ranata called me.
I almost didn’t answer.
Then I did.
“Fay.”
Her voice sounded tired.
“What do you want, Ranata?”
“Can we talk?”
“We talked last night.”
“Not really.”
I walked to the kitchen window.
“What do you need to say?”
She hesitated.
“Are you going to make Mom and Dad take legal action?”
I closed my eyes.
“That’s their decision.”
“You know what that could do to me.”
I looked across the fields.
“Do you know what you did to them?”
She didn’t answer.
I continued.
“They thought they were supporting me for fifteen years. They worried about me. They judged me. They used their savings because you told them I needed help.”
Her voice sharpened.
“And now you have millions, so you get to stand above everyone?”
“No.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because the truth matters.”
She let out a bitter laugh.
“You’ve always wanted to be better than me.”
I stood completely still.
For years, I had wondered why Ranata seemed unable to celebrate anything I accomplished.
Now she had finally said something close to the truth.
“Ranata, I never wanted to be better than you.”
“Sure.”
“I wanted to be left alone to build my life.”
She was silent.
I continued.
“You were the one who turned everything into a competition.”
Her voice broke.
“You don’t understand what it was like watching you do whatever you wanted.”
I frowned.
“I worked twelve-hour days.”
“You had your land. Your independence. You never cared what people thought.”
“That’s not true.”
“You didn’t need anyone.”
I looked at the old truck outside.
“Sometimes I needed people very badly.”
She said nothing.
“I just stopped expecting them to believe in me.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then Ranata whispered, “I can’t pay all of it back.”
I leaned against the counter.
“Then you need to tell Mom and Dad the truth about what you can repay.”
“They’ll never forgive me.”
“Maybe not right away.”
“Will you?”
I closed my eyes.
That was the first question she had asked that wasn’t about money or consequences.
I wanted to say yes.
I wanted to believe that sisters could repair anything if they loved each other enough.
But I couldn’t pretend.
“I don’t know.”
She began crying.
I listened for a moment.
Then I said, “I won’t lie to make this easier for you.”
And I ended the call.
That evening, I sat on my porch with a cup of coffee.
The sun lowered behind the fields.
My phone buzzed with a message from Dad.
He had written only one sentence.
I wish I had listened to you years ago.
I read it several times.
Then I typed a reply.
So do I.
I set the phone down.
For the first time since the sale, I allowed myself to cry.
Not because I had lost money.
Not because I had lost the farm.
Because I finally understood how many years I had spent trying to earn the trust of people who had never asked me for the truth.
PART 5: WHAT I CHOSE TO KEEP
The weeks that followed were quieter than I expected.
There was no dramatic family announcement.
No public confrontation.
No moment when everyone gathered around a table and suddenly became different people.
Real consequences moved more slowly.
My parents met with an attorney.
They brought the bank statements, handwritten notes, and the transfer records they had collected.
I provided my own financial documentation where it helped establish that I had paid the expenses attributed to me.
The older transactions took more time to examine.
Some records were incomplete.
Some descriptions were vague.
And some payments had to be traced before anyone could say exactly what they represented.
The $286,400 from the first set of records remained the clearest documented total.
Additional payments were being reviewed, but I refused to repeat an unverified figure.
I had spent fifteen years being described by someone else’s claims.
I wasn’t going to do the same thing to anyone else.
Even Ranata.
Especially Ranata.
She eventually acknowledged in writing that she had requested money under the pretense of helping me and had not passed those funds along.
She also agreed to work with our parents on a repayment arrangement based on what she could realistically afford.
I didn’t know whether she would keep every promise.
Neither did Mom and Dad.
But this time, promises weren’t going to be enough.
There would be records.
There would be accountability.
And there would be no more secret arrangements involving my name.
Desmond remained involved in sorting out their household finances.
I kept my distance from their marriage.
Whatever he had known, suspected, or failed to ask was something they needed to confront together.
I had enough to deal with.
Meanwhile, the farm sale continued moving through its final administrative stages.
My accountant helped me plan for taxes, long-term investments, and the kind of decisions I had never expected to make.
I hired professionals because I knew the limits of my own experience.
I understood land.
I understood hard work.
I understood the value of keeping careful records.
But managing the proceeds of a $39 million sale required a different kind of knowledge.
For once, I didn’t feel embarrassed about asking for help.
The difference was that I was choosing whom to trust.
One afternoon, Dad came to the farm.
I saw his sedan coming up the gravel driveway and walked outside.
He stepped out slowly.
For a moment, he stood looking across the fields.
“I haven’t been here in a long time,” he said.
“No.”
He looked toward the equipment shed.
“You fixed that roof.”
“Years ago.”
He nodded.
Then he noticed the truck.
“Still driving it?”
I smiled slightly.
“Still runs.”
For the first time, he smiled too.
We walked toward the old barn.
Dad stopped near the fence and rested one hand on the top rail.
“You built all this yourself?”
“Not entirely. I hired people when I needed to. But I paid for it.”
He nodded.
“I know that now.”
The wind moved through the grass.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then Dad said, “I think I was afraid you’d fail.”
I looked at him.
“When you bought this place, I thought you were making a mistake. You were young. The property needed so much work.”
“I know.”
“I wanted you to have something easier.”
I looked across the land.
“Easy wasn’t what I wanted.”
He nodded.
“I see that.”
Then he said something I hadn’t expected.
“Your sister always seemed so certain about everything. I mistook that for knowing what she was talking about.”
I looked at him.
“And you mistook my silence for not knowing.”
He lowered his head.
“Yes.”
It wasn’t a perfect conversation.
But it was real.
Before he left, Dad asked whether I planned to buy a new house.
“Eventually,” I said. “I’m still deciding what comes next.”
“Will you stay around here?”
“Probably. This is home.”
He looked relieved.
Then he said, “Whatever you decide, I’m proud of what you built.”
