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the money? I decided that now was not the time to ask.
    â€œAny leftovers?” I asked.
    â€œThere’s chicken in the fridge. Some potatoes and peas, too. Put some on a plate and pop it into the microwave.” He wasn’t about to get up and get me dinner, I could see.
    So I sliced off some chicken, scooped some mashed potatoes on a plate and threw it into the microwave, thinking the headline would read: Millionaire Son Forced to Reheat Leftover Chicken for Dinner. Maybe nothing had really changed at all. After a couple of minutes, I sat down to eat at the table with my dad. “What were you and mom fighting about?”
    He didn’t look up from his computer where he was scrolling through images of cars for sale. “You know how she gets.”
    I knew she was overly emotional sometimes. Well, lots of times, but it still wasn’t an answer. “What got her going this time?”
    Now he looked up. “I quit my job.”
    I hadn’t seen that coming. “You what?”
    â€œYeah. I quit. If I’m gonna do this thing right, I need to put everything into it.”
    â€œOh, shit,” I said out loud. What was he thinking? I didn’t like the way that everything was changing so quickly. And that he was all ready to make such a big gamble with my money. “That was stupid,” I told him outright.
    I thought he was going to lose it then. I had never called him stupid before. He was about to say something, but he stopped himself and gave me a look that drilled right through me.
    â€œWell, I thought you’d take this one step at a time,” I added, backing off a bit.
    â€œI am. And the first step is to get the down payment on that land you looked at, get the sucker paved, and move a nicely appointed trailer onto there. Brandon, you’re the dude who is making this all possible.”
    Dude? My uptight father called me dude ? “But it seems a bit quick.”
    â€œHey, the money is in the bank. It’s just sitting there getting—what?—two percent interest.”
    I suddenly wanted to say, “But it’s my money.” But I didn’t. My father read the look on my face. “Brandon, I thought a lot about this. This is my big chance. And I thought about you. Sure, I’m your father, but you don’t owe me anything. I remember my own father always made me feel like I owed him because he raised me, put food on the table, and bought me clothes. Man, how I hated it when he went on like that.”
    â€œIs that why we hardly ever see him?”
    â€œSomething like that. He and I just don’t see the world the same way. But I want it to be totally different between you and me. This business—I know it’s your money that will get it started. So we’re gonna do it as a partnership. You will be co-owner. You don’t have to work there or anything. But you’ll own half of everything. It’s called being a silent partner.”
    I stopped chewing and stared into my mashed potatoes, thinking, now I’m a silent partner, half-owner of a weedy lot that’s about to become a used car business on the highway. What was I to say? “Wow.”
    I always knew my old man could be pushy but I didn’t think he’d do this. I hated that I was still being treated like a kid. I wanted to yell at him and tell him what I really felt. But something in me made me stay quiet. I was seething but I didn’t feel like I was ready to stand up to him. Not right now, anyway. And maybe, just maybe, this would be a good thing. Maybe he knew what he was doing and it would all turn out okay. Maybe I should just have faith in him.
    He looked directly at me now, quite serious. “You’re okay with this, right? A father-son thing?”
    I was about to say what I was feeling but I stopped. I took a deep breath. “Yeah,” I said halfheartedly. “I’m cool with it. What do I do, write you a check, or