Dad just sat there wiping his hands with the napkin while Todd kept talking.
Not fast either. Slow. Like he suddenly had all the time in the world.
Todd was still explaining how he “streamlined everything.” His wife jumped in again about how stressful money stuff had gotten for everybody. My aunt kept nodding along while passing the potatoes around like this was normal dinner conversation.
Dad finally looked up and said, “So none of y’all thought maybe I should know before you removed me from my own accounts?”
Todd immediately got defensive. “You WERE on them. I just cleaned things up.”
Dad gave this little nod like he’d already expected that answer.
Then he reached beside his chair and picked up the folder Todd hadn’t even noticed sitting there the whole dinner.
“I went to the bank Thursday,” he said.
That shut everybody up real quick.
Todd tried to laugh. “Okay?”
Dad opened the folder and slid a paper across the table toward him. “The manager printed every transfer you made.”
You could actually see Todd stop breathing for a second.
His wife leaned over trying to read upside down while Todd kept saying, “Dad, you’re confused. Those were authorized.”
Dad looked exhausted more than angry.
“That’s the part that bothered me,” he said. “I DID authorize some of it. Because every time I asked questions, you acted like I was too far gone to understand the answers.”
Nobody touched their food after that.
Then Dad said something that honestly hit harder than the paperwork.
“You already started talking about me like I was somebody you inherited.”
Todd stared down at the table after that.
Dad folded the papers back up, stood slowly, and said, “Tomorrow morning we’re going back to the bank together. And this time I’m the one doing the talking.”