Colonel Brandt nodded politely. He glanced over at me. I nodded back.
Around five, my father caught my eye across the yard and jerked his head toward the side of the house.
I followed him around the corner, past the garbage cans, to the narrow strip of gravel between the house and the neighbor’s fence.
He didn’t waste time.
“You need to handle something tomorrow.”
“What kind of something?”
“A transfer. Paperwork. Simple.”
“Transfer of what?”
He looked at me like I was deliberately wasting his time. Like I was a lieutenant who’d forgotten how to read a map.
“The house.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Chloe needs stability,” he went on. “She’s having a baby. Vance’s company cut half their crew in March. They need a place that’s theirs. Not a place they’re
borrowing from you. You’re gone all the time. You don’t even use it. There’s no reason for you to keep holding onto it.”
“Holding onto it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“It’s mine, Dad. Grandpa left it to me.”
“Grandpa,” my father said, and something ugly flashed in his face, “was an old man who played favorites. He should have left it to me. Everybody knows that. You got lucky. And now it’s time to do the right thing.”
“And what’s the right thing?”
“There’s a title company in town. Mesa Title. Your mother set it up. The paperwork’s ready. You go in tomorrow at two, you sign a quitclaim deed putting the house in Chloe and Vance’s names, and it’s done. Clean. Simple. Nobody has to make a big deal about it.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“Why do you need me to sign it?”
