My father, Gene, was seventy-four, a retired high school shop teacher who had spent thirty-one years teaching young people how to build things. He was quiet, patient, and observant. After my mother died, he married Darlene, whose thirty-four-year-old son, Troy, had been living in Dad’s basement “temporarily” for four years.
My sixteen-year-old daughter, Paige, adored her grandfather. He had taught her to use a lathe when she was eight, and she had never given anyone a reason to question her honesty. Every Christmas Eve, we gathered at Dad’s house. This year, everything seemed perfectly normal until after dinner, when Darlene suddenly announced that two thousand dollars had disappeared from her purse. She slowly looked around the room before fixing her eyes on Paige. “You were near my bedroom,” she said. “I saw you.” Paige went pale. “I was going to the bathroom.” Then Darlene demanded that she empty her backpack.
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