I opened the door to find him standing there in a windbreaker, arms crossed, looking like a man who'd rehearsed something on the drive over and was determined to get through all of it before he lost his nerve.
"I think we need to talk," he said. "About the trust."
I invited him in, mostly because leaving him on the porch felt like starting things off worse than they needed to start.
Jonah came downstairs when he heard voices, and Preston's eyes went to him immediately, something complicated moving across his face — not quite anger, not quite grief, some tangled version of both.
"Two hundred thousand dollars," Preston said. "To a kid he wasn't related to. Meanwhile my sister and I are looking at a house that needs a new roof and an estate that's smaller than either of us expected, once the trust gets carved out of it."
"Mr. Ferris explained it was all documented," I said carefully. "Eighteen months ago, updated twice since."
"I don't doubt the paperwork," Preston said. "I doubt the reasoning."
"He left a letter," Jonah said quietly. "Explaining it."
"I read it. Mr. Ferris gave us a copy the same afternoon he gave you the original." Preston's jaw tightened. "You know what stung worse than the number, kid? It's true. Every word of it. I called him twice a year. I told myself work was busy, my own kids had activities, there'd be time later. There's a version of me that's been telling myself there'd be time later for about six years running, and now there isn't any left to have."
The room went quiet.
"I'm not here to fight you for the money," Preston said, softer now, some of the rehearsed edge gone out of his voice. "Ferris already told me a contest wouldn't hold up, and honestly, some part of me doesn't even want to try. I think I just needed to come here and see, in person, the kid my father apparently trusted more than he trusted his own son toward the end. I needed to understand what that looked like."
Jonah didn't say anything defensive. He just answered the way I'd watched him answer most things his whole life — plainly.
"I don't think he trusted me more," Jonah said. "I think I was just around. Every Saturday. That's not the same as being better than you. It's just being there."
