“She thought every transfer meant something.
She was stressed.
Paranoid, even.”
My mother’s voicemail to the bank said she had identified transfers she had not authorized.
That wasn’t paranoia.
That was accounting.
“Did you fight about it?” I asked.
He looked over his shoulder.
“You don’t remember?”
I shook my head.
He watched me carefully.
Then he made the decision I had been waiting for.
He relaxed.
“No,” he said.
“There was no fight.”
Ortiz had evidence that my mother had told the bank she confronted him that same evening.
My father continued speaking.
“Your mother was upset.
I left to give her space.
That’s why I was away from the house.
Then I saw the smoke and came back.”
A new story.
That morning he had told investigators he had been inside when the fire began.
Now, because he believed I couldn’t remember anything, he was placing himself outside.
I didn’t challenge him.
I simply asked, “You came back?”
“As fast as I could.”
The street footage showed his car traveling away from our neighborhood before the first explosion.
Other cameras later tracked the same vehicle farther from the scene.
He hadn’t turned around.
Not immediately.
He had kept driving.
“Did you see the explosion?”
His eyes flicked toward me.
“No.”
Too fast.
“Then how did you know there was one?”
Silence.
He swallowed.
“The police told me.”
Maybe they had.
Maybe they hadn’t.
It didn’t matter anymore.
His stories were multiplying.
People often believed a lie failed when it was disproved.
That wasn’t always true.
A lie could survive contradiction if the liar stayed disciplined.
What destroyed people like my father was having to maintain several versions at once.
I put the forms on the blanket.
“I want to sign,” I said.
His face brightened.
“Good.”
“But I can’t understand where the money goes.”
He sat beside me again.
“What money?”
