I did not tell Dwayne right away.
I thought about it for two weeks. I counted the money at the kitchen table, forty-one thousand, three hundred dollars, in mostly twenties and fifties, with a few hundred-dollar bills from the early years. I took it to the bank in Valentine and paid off the note on the north eighty. I put the rest in a savings account in Ben’s name and mine.
Then I went to see my mother-in-law.
Ada Haller was eighty-four and had lived with Dwayne and his wife Marlene in a split-level in Cody since 2019. She’d had a stroke the year before, a small one, and walked with a quad cane. She was in the front room when I came in, watching a game show with the sound off.
“Karen,” she said. “Sit down. You’ve lost weight.”
“I’m all right, Ada.”
“You’re not. But you’re a Haller, so you’ll say you are.” She patted the arm of her chair. “I hear Dwayne caused trouble.”
