Chapter 1 - The Bread Basket
Emily took the lobster plate before I touched it.
The server had barely lowered the white china when my daughter-in-law swept it away, dumped the bread basket into my lap, and smiled across the birthday table.
“Three-hundred-dollar lobster is wasted on an old man who’ll be dead before dessert.”
We were at Harrington’s on Cary Street, one of those Richmond steakhouses where the lighting flattered everyone and the waiters pretended not to hear family cruelty.
My son, David, kept carving his ribeye.
“Eat the bread, Dad,” he said. “Stop embarrassing the people who still matter.”
His nine-year-old son, Michael, tried to slide part of his lobster toward me. Emily slapped his hand aside and dragged the plate back.
“Your money belongs to us now,” she whispered, leaning close enough for me to smell her perfume. “Learn to be grateful for scraps.”
Her parents stared into their wineglasses. They were introduced everywhere in Richmond as wealthy people from River Road, though neither had reached for the check in years.
I picked a dinner roll from my lap.
“Noted,” I said.
That was all.
David looked disappointed. He had been waiting for me to protest so he could describe me as confused, difficult, or dramatic.
I paid for my coffee separately and left before the birthday cake.
On the drive home to Bon Air, an unopened bank envelope rested on the passenger seat. It had arrived that afternoon, addressed to me but marked with a forwarding label showing David’s West End home.
I had almost thrown it away. I did not bank with Tidewater Community.
At my kitchen table, I opened it.
The statement belonged to an account in my full legal name.
The mailing address was David’s.
During the previous month, $214,680 had entered the account from my brokerage firm.
Nearly all of it had already left.
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The final page listed three debit-card purchases.
One was the deposit for David’s birthday dinner at Harrington’s.
