Beside Eric’s was forty.
Eric stopped breathing for a moment.
He read the page again.
Sixty.
Forty.
He took out his phone.
Photographed it.
Put the document back.
Closed the envelope.
Then stood alone in the kitchen staring at the family photographs hanging on the refrigerator.
One showed David and Thomas fishing.
Another showed David’s children with their grandfather.
There was one picture of Eric too.
He was seventeen.
Standing beside an old pickup truck.
For years, Eric had believed his father preferred David.
Now he believed he had proof.
He did not confront Thomas immediately.
That was perhaps the strangest part.
For twenty-one days, he said nothing.
Instead, anger fermented.
At night, Eric stared at the photograph on his phone.
Sometimes he zoomed in.
Sometimes he sent it to himself in case he accidentally deleted it.
Once, at 2:13 in the morning, he sent it to his former wife Lauren.
She called him.
“What am I looking at?”
“My dad’s will.”
“You went through his will?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Eric.”
“David gets sixty.”
Lauren was silent.
Eric continued.
“He always does this.”
“Maybe there’s an explanation.”
“There’s always an explanation for David.”
“Then ask your dad.”
Eric laughed bitterly.
“So he can lie?”
Lauren paused.
Then she said something Eric would later remember with unbearable clarity.
“Don’t go over there angry.”
He did not answer.
Sunday arrived.
Thomas spent the morning alone.
Around noon, he drove to church.
Afterward he stopped at a grocery store.
The receipt later found in his kitchen showed bread, coffee, bananas, chicken soup and two bottles of sparkling water.
Nothing about the day suggested it would become the final day of his life.
At 5:52 p.m., Thomas heated soup.
At 6:08, the home security camera recorded him carrying a bowl into the living room.
At 6:19, headlights appeared through the front window.
Eric’s truck pulled into the driveway.
The camera recorded the front door opening.
Eric walked inside.
Thomas looked up from the sofa.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
There was no shouting.
No dramatic entrance.
Eric removed his jacket.
Hung it over the back of a dining chair.
That chair would later become evidence.
For the next ten minutes, the conversation was painfully normal.
Eric asked whether Thomas had watched the football game.
Thomas complained about the Browns.
Eric laughed once.
Thomas offered him water.
Eric said yes.
The camera had no audio for part of the living room, but another device closer to the hallway recorded their voices faintly.
At 6:31, Thomas returned with two bottles.
Eric took one.
Neither man opened it.
They sat.
Thomas on the sofa.
Eric in an armchair across from him.
For nearly forty seconds, neither spoke.
That silence would later haunt David.
He watched the footage alone months after the trial.
When reporters asked which part hurt the most, they expected him to say the chair.
He said it was those forty seconds.
Because nothing had happened yet.
His father was alive.
His brother was sitting five feet away.
There was still time for either man to say something different.
Finally Eric reached into his pocket.
He pulled out his phone.
Thomas looked at him.
Eric unlocked the screen.
Opened the photograph.
Then placed the phone on the coffee table.
“Why does David get sixty?”
Thomas stared at the screen.
His face changed immediately.
“Where did you get that?”
“That’s your answer?”
“Where did you get that?”
“Why does he get sixty?”
Thomas leaned back.
“Eric.”
“No. Tell me.”
“That document is none of your business.”
Eric laughed.
“My inheritance is none of my business?”
“It’s not your inheritance yet.”
The room went quiet again.
Eric stood.
Thomas remained seated.
“So you did it.”
“Sit down.”
“You gave him more.”
“Sit down.”
“You always give him more.”
Thomas looked tired now.
Not angry.
“Eric, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“You read something you weren’t supposed to read.”
“I read enough.”
Thomas finally stood.
The camera captured both men in profile.
Eric was taller.
Thomas was broader.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Eric pointed toward the phone.
“Sixty-forty.”
Thomas shook his head.
“It’s not that simple.”
“It’s numbers.”
“It’s a draft.”
“Of course.”
“It is.”
“Of course it is now.”
Thomas took a slow breath.
“Your debts are part of this.”
That sentence changed the argument.
Eric stepped closer.
“My debts?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s what you think of me?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You think I’ll blow it.”
“I think you’re in trouble.”
“David tell you that?”
“No.”
“He always talks about me.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“He thinks he’s better than me.”
“David has nothing to do with this.”
“David has everything to do with this!”
Eric’s voice echoed through the room.
Upstairs, nothing moved.
Outside, a neighbor walked a dog past the house.
Later that neighbor would tell police she heard shouting but did not think much of it.
Families argued.
People yelled.
Doors slammed.
Nobody knew what was happening inside.
Thomas lowered his voice.
That somehow made things worse.
“You’ve spent ten years blaming your brother for choices he didn’t make.”
Eric stared at him.
Then smiled.
Not because anything was funny.
“You wanna know what I think?”
Thomas said nothing.
“I think Mom knew.”
Thomas’s expression hardened.
“Don’t.”
“She knew you liked him more.”
“Do not bring your mother into this.”
“She always defended you.”
“Eric.”
“She knew.”
Thomas stepped forward.
“Your mother spent her last months asking where you were.”
Silence.
The sentence landed harder than any insult.
Eric’s face changed.
For the first time, the anger disappeared.
Underneath it was hurt.
Real hurt.
Thomas saw it.
Immediately, he regretted what he had said.
“Eric…”
But Eric backed away.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You think I don’t think about that every day?”
Thomas softened.
“Son.”
“No.”
Eric turned away.
For several seconds he stood near the dining table with his back to his father.
His shoulders were moving.
Thomas took one step closer.
“I know you loved her.”
Eric wiped his face.
“I was scared.”
“I know.”
“I couldn’t watch her die.”
“I know.”
That was the first quiet moment of the argument.
For nearly twenty seconds, nothing happened.