Marine Returns From Okinawa to Find Her Bungalow Already Sold
I adjusted my uniform collar, the stiff cotton pressing against my throat. “Twenty thousand dollars does not buy back a deed, Dad.”
“I did this for the family, Maria, and I can make this right if you let me,” he said. He rubbed his thumb over his scarred knuckles, his eyes darting toward the window where the morning traffic on the highway was starting to build.
“Where is the sixty-four thousand?” I asked.
He did not answer. He took a slow sip of his black coffee, his shoulders hunched as if he could disappear into his faded flannel shirt.
“Chad needed help, Maria,” he said finally. “You do not know what kind of people he was dealing with in Mobile. They were calling my apartment. They were standing in my driveway at night.”
“So you stole my home to pay his poker debts?”
He looked up then, a defensive flash in his grey eyes. “It was an emergency. If you drop this now, I can transfer the twenty thousand to your account by noon.”
