The truth came out in a glass-walled office at a bank in Dublin, Ohio, on a hot Tuesday in July, less than six weeks before college tuition bills were due.
My brother Derek sat across from the financial adviser with both of his sons, Mason and Owen, beside him, already wearing the stunned expressions of boys who thought adulthood had arrived with a welcome packet and a dorm key. My mother, Margaret, had insisted on coming because she wanted to “see the boys’ future officially handled.” My father, Walter, looked irritated before the meeting even started, as if numbers themselves were a personal insult.
Then the adviser turned the monitor toward us.
“I’m sorry,” she said carefully, tapping the screen, “but the custodial accounts were liquidated twenty-two months ago.”
For a second, nobody breathed.
