Marvin’s voice did not shake. “Howard, I want every check you ever wrote, and from now on you write them to me.” Howard nodded slowly, saying he had kept every stub in a coffee can because Marvin had taught him to, and he never thought to question a man’s own daughter. Shame reddened his face.

I was reaching for my phone to call Ray when tires crunched on the gravel behind us. A silver truck stopped, and Loretta climbed out in her church clothes, gripping a folded paper and looking at Daddy as if she feared him for the first time in her life. “Daddy,” she said, her voice cracking, “before you say another word, you need to see what I did with that money, and who is waiting in the truck.”