Grandpa looked at Brent for a long second and said, real calm, “Then give it back.”
Nobody even pretended not to know what he meant.
Brent laughed first. “Grandpa, come on.”
“No,” Grandpa said. “My phone. My accounts. All of it.”
You could hear forks clinking because suddenly everybody got very busy looking at their plates.
My other cousin jumped in fast with that fake gentle voice again. “You’re getting upset over nothing.”
Grandpa looked right at him. “I asked about buying your daughter textbooks and got treated like I was asking permission to leave the house.”
That hit hard because… yeah. That’s exactly what it sounded like.
Brent tried smiling through it. “We’re literally helping you.”
Grandpa nodded slowly. “Funny how helping me always seems to involve my money belonging to somebody else.”
Nobody moved after that.
My aunt actually whispered “Dad…” like she wanted him to stop before things got worse.
But I think he was done being embarrassed in front of people.
He pointed at Brent’s phone on the table. “You changed passwords I’ve had since before you were born.”
Brent’s face started getting red. “Because you kept forgetting things.”
“I forgot one password,” Grandpa snapped. “You emptied three accounts.”
Dead silence.
Even Brent looked surprised he’d said that out loud.
Then Grandpa pushed his chair back a little and stood up slower than usual.
“I buried my wife six months ago,” he said. “And ever since then everybody’s been talking around me like I’m already dead too.”
Nobody had an answer for that.
Then he looked at my uncle and said, “Tomorrow you’re driving me to the bank.”
And for the first time all night, Brent looked actually nervous.