Dad told me everything while Julian stood frozen in the doorway. In March, Julian had brought him papers and called them pension forms. Dad, who could barely read the small print, signed them. They were really a power of attorney. Julian used it to take control of the bank accounts where I sent three thousand five hundred dollars every month, then promised the house to a group of buyers and collected an eighty-thousand-dollar deposit. The buyers had come that night to inspect it, but they needed the original deed, and Dad had hidden it.

Dad knelt and slid the iron key into a lock under the cabinet’s base, one I would never have seen. A narrow drawer opened. He had built it himself forty years earlier, after Julian, as a boy, was caught stealing from Mom’s sewing tin. Inside lay the original deed in both my parents’ names and a notarized paper stating that the house could never be sold unless both of them signed in person before a notary. The power of attorney Julian used did not cover real estate at all, so every promise he made to the buyers was worthless.

My phone buzzed, and I put Marisol on speaker. She had spent the evening at the bank and the registry. The accounts were frozen, she said, and two transfers to Julian totaling sixty-one thousand dollars had been flagged as fraud. She had also filed a complaint, and an inspector would arrive within the hour. The buyers, who had followed Julian to the doorway, heard every word. They demanded their deposit back and left without another glance. Daniela dropped the folded paper, and Julian finally admitted that gambling debts had pushed him to it.

Mom cried into my shoulder. Julian and Daniela moved out that week and signed a repayment plan, and Mom asked me not to press charges. I agreed. That night, my parents slept in their own bedroom. I hung the iron key on the kitchen wall, and Dad ate dinner at his own table.