Sometimes with nothing but stories.
We talked about my wife.
His mother.
His father.
The kid he’d been.
The man he didn’t want to be anymore.
One evening, he sat at my kitchen table staring at his hands.
“I’ve been looking into the permits for the mall,” he said.
My gut tightened.
“They weren’t legal.
The zoning. The condemnation. None of it.
The mayor took bribes from me to push it through.”
“You bribed him.”
“Yes, I paid to cut corners. He let me. Your house was taken on a lie I funded.”
I let that sit between us.
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