“I want to talk about the house.”
Derek’s smile held.
“Sure.
What about it?”
“You transferred the deed fourteen months ago.
You put it in an LLC.”
A beat.
Not long — Derek recovered fast.
“Dad asked me to.
It’s an asset protection strategy.
I explained it to them.”
“You told my mother she was signing a tax renewal form.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“She told me herself, Derek.”
“She’s seventy-one years old, Alvin.
She gets confused.” Derek set his mug down on the side table — his mother’s side table, the one she had refinished herself twice.
“Look, I know this looks a certain way, but I’ve been here.
You’ve been in New York sending checks and calling it done.
I’m the one who’s been managing everything.”
“You’ve been managing their bank account too.” Alvin kept his voice level.
“Thirty-eight hundred dollars a month, routed to an account I don’t recognize.
For eight months.”
Derek’s jaw moved.
“That’s household expenses.
Utilities, maintenance—”
“They’ve been living on two hundred dollars a month, Derek.”
“That’s not—”
“Paper plates.” Alvin took one step closer.
“They eat on paper plates in a storage shed because you told them they couldn’t use the kitchen when you have guests.
Our parents.
In their own house.”
Derek’s easy expression was gone now.
Something harder had replaced it.
“You don’t know the full picture.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“I’m not going to stand here and be interrogated in my own home.”
“It’s not your home.” Alvin said it quietly.
“And we both know it.”
Derek picked up his mug again.
His hand was steady, but the coffee moved.
“I think you should leave, Alvin.
Come back when you’re ready to have an actual conversation.”
“I’ll be back,” Alvin said.
“With my attorney.”
He walked to the front door and opened it himself.
Behind him, Derek said: “You know what your problem is?
You always thought you were the responsible one.
You weren’t here.
You have no idea what I’ve dealt with.”
Alvin stopped in the doorway without turning around.
“I have the documents from the bank, Derek.
All of them.
Including Dad’s notes.”
He walked out and pulled the door shut behind him.
