“Her father told me he bought it from a business partner 25 years ago,” I explained. “For $25,000. The man told him it was a generational lucky charm.” I kept my eyes on his face. “He told me the man’s name.”
“Wait,” Dan was stunned. “Claire’s father?”
“Yes.”
Dan said nothing. He pressed his lips together and looked at the table, and in that moment he looked less like my 50-something brother and more like the teenager who used to get caught doing things he knew better than to do.
“It was just going into the ground, Maureen,” he said finally, his voice dropping. “Mom was going to bury it. It would’ve been gone forever.”
“What did you do, Dan?”
