The debt has been paid

But not because I'm a good person

My middle brother — the nicest among us — called this weekend from just west of Tulsa.

He was driving from his home in New Mexico to our motherland, southwest Missouri, to do some repair work around our mother’s house. I have had no serious conversations with the woman since 1990, the year I confronted her and her husband, my stepfather, about the sexual abuse he brought into the family.