Settling Dad's Debt

The envelope arrived on a Tuesday, thick and heavy with a sense of dread.

Inside was a letter from my brother, Mark, and a single, photocopied page

from our late father’s ledger. A debt, circled in red ink: $15,000.

“He lent this to you for your business,” Mark wrote. “It’s time to settle the estate.”

My stomach dropped. The money was real, but so was the context he’d omitted. Five years ago,

Dad gave me that loan to keep my fledgling graphic design studio afloat. He’d done the same

for Mark a decade prior, for his failed restaurant venture—a sum never repaid,

quietly forgiven.