Ryan hadn’t a clue what to say or do; all he knew was that he couldn’t stand to watch his father struggle like this. He squeezed his arm. “Please, Dad. Put that letter down. Come with me. I’ll try to explain what’s going on.”

“No, Son, we need to f-fix this . . . need to fix this now.”

“We can’t, Dad.”

“But we have to. We must.”

“There’s nothing we can do right now. There’s nothing we can fix.”

His father looked down at the letter, then back up at Ryan; confusion was etched into every line and wrinkle on his face. “But, Son, this is our home.”

“I know.”

“Then have you read this?”

“I know what it says.”

“They can’t come and take our home, Ryan.”

“Listen, Dad . . .”

“They can’t s-send . . . a letter like this . . .”

“Dad, please . . .”

“This place belongs to us, Son . . . to us . . .”

“Dad, stop! The ranch doesn’t belong to us, not anymore.”

“What?”

“That letter’s real. The ranch . . . it’s gone.”

“How c-can it be gone?”

“Because it is, okay? Because of me.”

His father fell silent. Even his hand stopped shaking for a moment. “S-S-Son . . . wh-what do you mean?”

“I’ve ruined everything, Dad. The bank’s evicting us and it’s all my fault. I’ve been lying to you, lying about what happened after your stroke, about the business, about everything.”

Ryan held his father’s gaze for a moment, his voice dissolving into a whimper. “There was never any insurance. When you left the hospital, you were supposed to be placed into a nursing home, but I borrowed the money so that I could bring you back to the ranch, because I knew this was where you needed to be. I took out a loan against our home and paid for your therapy, paid for all of it. I never told you because I didn’t want you to worry, because all I wanted you to do was concentrate on getting better. I love you—you’re all I’ve got. I let you think the insurance had taken care of everything because I thought I could pay it all back. I thought you would never need to know. Except I couldn’t pay it back, and now we’re about to lose everything. This is all my fault, Dad. All me. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

His father sat motionless, numb from the shock.

“Please realize that I never meant for this to happen. I never meant for you to find out this way. You have to know that I’ve been trying to get us out of this mess. For years, I’ve been trying, Dad, every single day. But business has been drying up, and I’ve kept needing to borrow more and—”

“St-st-stop . . . t-talking . . .”

“I took a part-time job at the diner. I’ve been doing everything I possibly can to—”