Just then, the front door opened and Jimmy sauntered in. “Hey, y’all.”
Hank scowled. “You should knock.”
Jimmy waved that away. “I’m family. Family doesn’t knock.”
“It does now. And just a heads up, Hank changed the locks.” I motioned to our beast of a big brother.
“The hell he did.” Jimmy’s face scrunched.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Hank grumbled.
“I told Billy I was stopping to get a bite.”
“Did you bring enough for the class?” I stuck out my hand.
Jimmy grinned. “Nah, Hank called the meeting. So he has to provide the food.”
It was a Comfort brother rule: He who calls the meeting must provide the sustenance.
“You already ate.”
“That was first lunch. You know, like Taco Bell has fourth meal.” He grinned.
I had to laugh. Jimmy was predictable, that was for damn sure. He’d say it was part of his charm. I wasn’t quite sold on that being the case.
Hank silently headed toward the kitchen and Jimmy and I followed along behind him. We sat down at the table and Hank walked to the refrigerator. He took out a plastic container with cold cuts inside, popped the top, and sniffed it before setting it on the counter.
Next came cheese, condiments, lettuce, and a loaf of bread. All of them except the bread got the sniff test, just like the deli meat had.
“Damn, Hank. I don’t know whether to feel good about the fact that you just smelled that food, or shitty about the fact that you had to,” I winced.
Hank ignored me as he dropped the sandwich fixings down in the middle of the table, along with a paper plate and plastic utensils for each of us.
“See? This is why I ate before I came over here. I never know what state your fridge is going to be in.” Jimmy said, not letting that stop him from spreading mayonnaise enthusiastically on a slice of bread.
Hank narrowed his eyes. “I notice that’s not keeping you from stuffing your face.”
Jimmy shrugged, the carefree grin that was his default spread across his face.
Hank slathered mustard on his slice of bread, at a much slower and more measured pace than Jimmy. When he spoke, the cadence of his voice matched the rhythm of his knife. “Did Pop ever say anything to you all about a trust fund?”
Jimmy and I both stared at one another blankly. Once upon a time, our father was a hard-working man. He owned the bar and bought the house we were all seated in, after all. But the past twenty years, since losing our mom, he’d barely been able to make ends meet. Or at least for the first ten that had been the case. Once I took over managing the bar and Hank moved back here, we’d handled all the finances.
“Pop left a trust fund?” Jimmy asked, sounding just as confused as I felt.
“No. He said Mama did.”
“Oh.” We both nodded.
That made sense. Our mother came from money. Old money. Still, I hadn’t ever heard of this before. “What did he say?” Hank tended to communicate the abbreviated versions of things, so I repeated the question and clarified my meaning. “What did he say exactly?”
“It was at the end, he wasn’t making a lot of sense. But he kept talkin’ bout the trust. That the trust was ours. That she would want us to have it. And then he’d get real mad and say it was an accident. It was an accident, over and over.”
“What was an accident?” Jimmy asked, his mouth full of food.
“Hell if I know.” Hank said in a monotone. “But it has somethin’ to do with the trust.”
None of this made any sense. I set my knife down. “How much are we talkin’ about?”