By spring, the story had cooled in California the way scandals do once fresh gossip gives way to consequences nobody wants to examine too closely. Brett was in prison. Tiffany had moved to Orange County for reasons involving “space,” according to a cousin I never responded to. My parents downsized from the house I grew up in after my father’s debts and my mother’s spending finally collided. The town did what towns do: absorbed the drama into lore and moved on.
I might have moved on too, entirely, if not for the call that came fourteen months after I left.
Unknown number. U.S. country code.
I almost ignored it. Instead I answered because some old reflex still believed emergencies were real.
Silence, then a breath I knew.
“Valerie?”
My father.
George Miller had always had a salesman’s voice, even at the dinner table. It rose and softened when he wanted something, turned clipped and managerial when he did not. This version was thin around the edges. Older. Less certain.
“What do you want?” I asked.
He exhaled shakily. “I just need five minutes.”
“You have one.”
A pause.
“We’re in trouble.”
I laughed once, not kindly. “That seems consistent.”