We found Seth near the washout, trying to move a fallen branch with a borrowed canoe paddle. He claimed he was checking whether the road had reopened, but his backpack held the remaining grocery money and his car keys. He had planned to drive through before anyone demanded refunds. Dad stared at the bag, then asked Seth to hand it to Tara. Seth refused until the sheriff's deputy arrived and told him the road was physically impassable.

Back at the camp, we counted the money around a picnic table. Seth had spent three hundred dollars on food, eighty on mowing, and sixty on the van deposit. He had no receipts for the rest. Tara calculated refunds while I wrote each amount down. Seth said family should not conduct an audit during a storm. I said the storm had not created the missing money or the cut chain. It had only prevented him from leaving before we asked.

Dad surprised me by agreeing. He returned the brass key and said he had confused preserving tradition with controlling the place where tradition happened. He offered to pay for the chain and one night at the camp. I accepted the chain cost but divided the lodging among the adults. Accountability spread across the group: Seth returned what he held, attendees paid their own stay, and I paid none of the consequences of a gathering I had refused.

By morning, the water receded enough for supervised departure. Before leaving, everyone carried their coolers past the open trench and saw the collapsed pipe. Nobody joked about careful flushing. Tara asked whether a smaller reunion could happen after repairs. I said perhaps, through a reservation process with occupancy limits. Seth said he would never beg to visit a house where he had grown up. As he climbed into the van, Dad stopped him and asked for one more thing: the second brass key Seth had copied.